


Home Orbit

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Period-Typical Homophobia, uneven relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-21 12:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15557376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Arthur learns his brother was killed in a traffic accident, and finds himself drawn back across the Atlantic to the country and the home he left behind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please let me know if any inappropriate Americanisms have made their way into the dialog or POV of Arthur (or the other British characters) so I can fix them. Thanks! :)

**1986**

 

            Though he normally preferred to avoid the stuff, Arthur Stuart was pouring out a cup of coffee from the pot in the _Herald_ ’s break room.  Outside, it was the kind of gray, late February day that filled one’s entire soul with a melancholic sense of unease, and the drab décor of the _Herald_ ’s offices did nothing to dispel it, so he was hoping something warm in his belly might help.  It probably wouldn’t, but it seemed unlikely to hurt, either.

            “Arthur, you’re not busy, are you, hon,” Mary said as she approached him, a piece of paper in her hand.  Despite that her words formed a question, there was no question in her voice.

            “Would it change anything if I said I was?” he asked, realising full well that the answer would be a resounding ‘no.’

            “It’s just I’m not sure who else to ask,” Mary went on, ignoring him.  “But you’ll know.  You’re English.”

            Arthur sorely wished he could have been surprised by those last two words, but he wasn’t.  Not even a little bit.  “What are you goin’ on about?”

            Mary smiled.  “It’s this story that came in over the wire.  I don’t know what to make of it.  But you’ll understand the details, so I can know how to slant my story.”

            “If it came in over the wire, why not use the version you’ve got?”  The _Herald_ printed untouched Reuters and Associated Press stories all the time.

            “Well, the New Yorker isn’t the focus of the story.  I need to play him up, and push the whole unjust incarceration thing.”

            Arthur sighed.  If a New Yorker was incarcerated in England, he likely deserved it.  But there was no point saying so.  “I don’t ‘ave any legal trainin’, so I doubt I could—”

            “I’ve never even _heard_ of this place where he’s being held!”

            “Where is it?” Arthur asked wearily, as he picked up a packet of creamer to pour in his coffee.

            “Someplace called Manchester,” Mary answered.

            The packet splashed down into the coffee, forgotten.

            “Is that bad?” Mary asked, pulling the story back towards her chest as if she felt the need to protect it from Arthur’s sudden bout of clumsiness.

            “It’s my hometown.”  And it wasn’t really a tourist destination.  What was a New Yorker doing there, and why had he been arrested?  “What happened?”

            Mary shrugged, holding the paper out towards him again.  “Traffic accident.”

            “That doesn’t sound particularly serious…”

            Arthur took the paper and started reading the story printed on it, skimming over the tedious introductory material.  “…a New York resident of 47 years, is under arrest for driving while intoxicated, and multiple counts of vehicular manslaughter.  He was driving on the wrong side of the road at what witnesses reported was an extremely high speed when his car struck an oncoming vehicle.  The other vehicle’s driver, Nigel Stuart, his wife, and their two sons were all killed in the resulting—”

            Arthur ran back to his desk and started dialling the phone without even sitting down.  The whole time he was dialling the familiar number, he kept praying that they hadn’t moved, that the number was still good.  Mary came up while the phone was ringing.  He handed her back her story, but didn’t pay any attention to what she was saying to him.  All he had was concentrated on that phone, on willing it to be answered.

            When it was, the familiar voice filled him with a grim relief.  “Hello?”  The voice was thin and worn, much more so than Arthur had ever heard it.

            “Mum!  It’s Arthur,” he started.

            “Arthur!  Is it—is it really you?”  The strangled sound of a sob being choked off by sheer force of will.  “Your—your brother, he—”

            “I know, Mum.  I just saw the news story.  But what…I…”  Arthur told himself it was just speaking to his mother again after all these years that had his chest tightening up and his eyes misting up.  It wasn’t sorrow for his horrible brother, who certainly wouldn’t have shown any sorrow if their positions were reversed.  “How…are you and Dad holdin’ up all right?”  Not that he cared one whit about his father, but it seemed the thing to say.

            “Oh, Arthur…”  A deep, pained inhalation.  “Your father’s gone.”

            Arthur sank down into his chair.  “Gone?” he repeated.  “How?”  It seemed impossible.

            “It was a heart attack.  Almost three years ago.”  A sniffling noise.  “Nigel went to London to bring you home for the funeral, but he couldn’t find you.”

            “I was already in New York by then.”

            “Why would you go so far away?”

            “I…”  What answer could he possibly give in such a circumstance?  No matter what reason he might give, it would sound so selfish and trivial.  “I don’t even know anymore.”  He bit his lip through an awkward silence.  “I’m sorry.”

            “What for?”

            “For not bein’ there for you.  I…I’m a terrible excuse for a son.”

            “Don’t say that, Arthur.”  Her voice was warm despite the sorrow lacing through it.

            The whole length of the conversation, Arthur couldn’t believe how genuinely pleased his mother seemed to be to hear from him.  After he had run away and never sent back word, she should have hated him, but she didn’t.  Despite what a worthless, ungrateful wretch of a son he had been, she was willing to forgive him and accept him, as if he had done nothing wrong.

            As soon as he was through with the phone call, Arthur went to the gents’ to wash the tears from his face, and then he went into Lou’s office.  “Is something the matter, Arthur?” the old man asked, with his usual genial smile.

            “I just found out my brother’s been killed in a car crash,” Arthur told him.  “I’ll need some time off to go home for the funeral.”

            “You’ve never talked about your family before,” Lou commented, as he picked up a little notebook off his desk and began to flip through it.

            “We…we didn’t really get on,” Arthur admitted.  “But now my mother’s all alone, and…I want to be there for her.”

            Lou nodded.  “It says here you’ve got a week of vacation time built up,” he said, tapping the open page of the notebook.  “Take as much of that time as you need.”

            There was something a bit patronising about being told to take his own vacation days, but Arthur thanked his editor all the same, then left his office.  He stopped for a few minutes to hand over the notes for the story he had been working on to Lionel, so he could finish the assignment in Arthur’s place.  Once that was done, he left the building, heading home.

            There was a lot he was going to have to do very quickly.

 

***

 

            The plane ride from New York to London felt twice as long as the one from London to New York had, perhaps because this time Arthur knew exactly what was waiting for him.  He’d have to go shopping in London to pick up something to wear to the funeral—doing so in Manchester seemed a bad idea, lest he have the ill fortune to run into someone he used to know—and then he had a long train ride north ahead of him.

            The worst part of all of it, of course, was how little he felt at the knowledge that his elder brother was dead.  He felt terribly for his poor mother, and he felt sorry for the sister-in-law and nephews he had never even known existed, but Arthur just couldn’t force himself to care that Nigel was gone.  And there was a cruel part of him that was actually rather glad he’d never have to see his father again.

            That being the case, how was he supposed to face his mother?  How was he supposed to see her crying over the loss of her beloved son and not hate himself for being a heartless bastard?

 

***

 

            Though Arthur continued to fret over his numerous shortcomings as a son—and as a brother—for the entire trip north, and for the taxi ride to his family home, he forgot it all as soon as his mother opened the door to the house.

            The first thing he was aware of was her face, lined with cares and the passage of time, but still the same face he remembered so poignantly covered with sorrow as the bus pulled away, leaving her behind as he ran off to London.  Though he had thought of dozens of things he should say or do on seeing her again, all he could actually do now that the moment had come was to give her a big hug, crying and incoherently apologising for having stayed silent so long.  His mother’s arms around him felt frail and thin, but it wasn’t until they went inside that Arthur started to worry about just _how_ frail she had become.

            They weren’t halfway to the kitchen before she stumbled, and Arthur had to drop his suitcase to catch her.  “Are you all right?” he asked.

            “It’s…I’m used to it,” his mother assured him.

            “That’s not what I’m asking.”  One could get used to almost anything with enough time.  That didn’t make it in any way right.

            She smiled weakly, and tried to avoid explaining her ill health to him as she set the kettle on for tea.  It was only after she dropped the kettle—twice!—and Arthur had to take over that his mother relented and explained that her health had been poorly ever since his father’s death.  “Nigel actually moved back into the house to take care of me,” she eventually admitted, over a cup of tea she hadn’t touched in the five minutes it had been sitting there.  “Such a humiliation!”

            Arthur hesitated.  He wanted to ask if she was humiliated at needing her son to look after her, or if Nigel had felt humiliated at having to move back into his childhood home to care for her—even though it was a child’s duty to look after an aging parent, and nothing for either party to feel humiliated about.  Before he could make up his mind as to whether or not he was going to ask anything, and what he was going to ask if he did, something started making a racket upstairs.  It almost sounded like a crying baby.

            His mother got to her feet immediately, and hurried off towards the stairs as best she could.  Uncertainly, Arthur went after her.  “Mum, what’s goin’ on?” he asked, steadying her with one hand.  “Is that a baby?”

            “It’s Sarah, Nigel’s youngest,” Mum explained.  “She wasn’t with them in the car…”

            “Bloody hell…”  She was in a condition where she couldn’t take care of herself, but she had been trying to take care of a baby?

            Arthur helped her up the stairs, and hovered the whole time his mother was taking care of the crying child.  Sarah looked to be nearly a year old, so she was large enough that Mum had trouble lifting her, but not yet old enough to be able to walk steadily or talk or take care of herself in any way.  How was Mum supposed to raise a child if she couldn’t get around the house without help?  How had she even managed in the few days since Nigel was killed?

            “Did, um, did her mother have any family?” Arthur asked, realising suddenly that he didn’t even know the name of his brother’s wife.  Late wife.  Late brother’s late wife.  “Can they take care of the baby?”

            “None that I know of,” his mother told him.  “Maybe there will be someone at the funeral…”

            Arthur nodded grimly.

            _If_ his brother’s in-laws were at the funeral and could take in the child, then that would be all right.  The baby would be properly cared for, and Mum…well…he’d figure something out.  As long as there was no child to take care of, there were options.  Nurses, old friends she could stay with, or she could come back to New York with him.  Options.  Plenty of them.

            So long as there was no child to worry about.


	2. Chapter 2

            The funeral was an even more miserable affair than most.  Four coffins, and only three living relations, one of whom was a screaming baby.  It wasn’t a small turn-out, however.  Nigel had had a lot of friends, and apparently his wife had, too.  Even his sons had been popular, and there were dozens of crying school children there to say one last goodbye to the friends an American drunk had robbed them of.

            That should have been the worst the funeral had in store:  what could be worse than seeing dozens of 4-7 year olds crying over lost friends?  Children that age should be spared the very notion of mortality, not facing it head on.  So that should have been the worst part.  But it wasn’t.  All of Nigel’s old school chums were there, all the ones who remembered Arthur, and knew why he had left Manchester.  During the funeral itself, they kept whispering to each other, looking over at him with mocking smirks that were horribly inappropriate to the setting.  And at the gathering at his mother’s house afterwards, as they drank to Nigel’s memory, they became very loud in their mockery of his queer little brother.

            When the funeral had started, most of those in attendance had no reason to look askance at Arthur.  By the time the day was over, they were all giving him disgusted, hateful stares, as if he had murdered his brother himself.

            If he hadn’t had his mother and Sarah to worry about, Arthur would have caught the first train or bus headed south, and gotten on the next plane to New York as soon as he arrived in London.   But he didn’t have that freedom now.

            Once everyone was gone, Arthur watched uncomfortably as his mother did her best to change Sarah’s diaper and put her to bed.  Then she actually tried to clean the house.  “Mum, you go on to bed,” he told her, stopping her from getting down onto her knees to pick up the rubbish off the floor.  “I’ll clean up.”

            She resisted for a moment or two, then thanked him, and went off to her room.

            The whole time Arthur was cleaning, he went over their situation in his head.  If he simply left town now, the best case scenario was that someone in authority would take Sarah away and put her with foster parents, and his mother would end up in a retirement home with other old people whose children couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of them.  In the worst case scenario, there would be another funeral.  Maybe even two.

            Even the best case wasn’t acceptable.  Nigel had been a wretch, but his daughter was innocent, and shouldn’t be raised by strangers just because her father had been a cruel brother.

            The only solution was for Arthur to step in and handle things.  But he couldn’t move back to Manchester.  Today’s events had proven that very concretely.  He’d have to talk his mother into selling the house.  With the money from that, he could rent a bigger flat back in New York, where he could look after them.  Though he might need to hire a nurse to help his mother out while he was at work.  So he’d probably have to beg Lou for a raise.  But no, maybe Mum had some money saved up, and he could use _that_ to pay for a nurse.

            Of course, it seemed awful to take an innocent baby to America, when she could be raised in freedom in the UK instead.  Admittedly, Thatcher wasn’t _that_ much better than Reynolds, but…well, at least fewer of her followers had guns.

            But staying in Britain wasn’t an option, so why did that matter?  Arthur had a life in New York, and he didn’t want to have to give it up.  Admittedly, his job wasn’t much and his co-workers were obnoxious, but New York had other appeals.

            Unfortunately, when he brought the subject up the next morning, he found his mother absolutely adamant.  She didn’t want to move.  This was the house she had lived in for the last thirty-five years, where she had given birth to and raised her two sons, where she had lost first her husband and then her elder son.  Arthur tried to use the losses to point out why she should want to leave, but she wasn’t listening, and insisted that she would never move, and that the subject was closed.

            As much as he didn’t want to go wandering the familiar old streets, Arthur needed to get out and cool his head after that exchange, and was soon walking along through the chill air, turning up the collar of his coat around his face in the hopes that no one would see or recognise him.  He ended up making his way to the nearest pub, where he took a seat in the corner to nurse a pint as bitter as his mood.

            At first, everyone in the place ignored him.  Anyone in a small pub on a Sunday morning obviously wasn’t looking for companionship; only an addiction or a life too miserable to face others would land a person in a pub so early in the day.  Eventually, though, a new arrival who took a seat at the bar kept turning to look at him.  Arthur did his best not to look at anything but his pint, hoping the other person didn’t know him, and would go away.

            That wasn’t happening.  Soon the other man was approaching his table.  “It’s Arthur, isn’t it?” he said, peering down at the table.  “Arthur Stuart?”

            Arthur looked up at him in shock.  Staring a moment let him recognise the other man; he had taught maths at Arthur’s school.  “Y-yeah.”

            The maths professor sat down at his table.  “Heard about your brother,” he said, shaking his head.  “Terrible thing.  Those poor boys.”

            “Yeah.”

            “But what brings you drinking so early?  Can’t be sorrow over your loss, not after everything your brother said about you after you ran off to London.”

            Arthur winced.  “It’s not,” he admitted.  Part of him wanted to ask just what Nigel had said, but it didn’t seem terribly appropriate to start hating the dead the day after the funeral.

            “What is it, then?”

            After a moment’s hesitation, Arthur found himself explaining everything.  The professor nodded solemnly the whole time.  “What made you decide to leave for America?” he asked.  “If you don’t mind my asking,” he added, a bit too late.

            Arthur shrugged.  “I’m not sure anymore.”  In his heart, he had been chasing after the man of his dreams, and he knew that now, but he had long since forgotten what lies his heart had told his brain about why he should move to New York.  “Looking for a fresh start, I suppose.”  Sounded reasonable enough.

            “And this job you’ve got in New York, is it anything special?”

            “Not really.”  He liked journalism, but the _Herald_ wasn’t exactly an important paper, or one that could afford to pay well.

            “Do you have a boyfriend in the States?”

            Well, that answered one question regarding what Nigel had said about him.  “Not exactly.”

            “Then there’s nothing on the other side of the Atlantic that really outweighs your own mother, is there?”

            “Suppose not.”  Which wasn’t entirely true, but wasn’t entirely false, either.

            “Your mother’s a reasonable woman.  She doesn’t want to move to another country at this point in her life, and I can’t blame her for that at all, but she might not object so strongly to moving to London.  Surely you can find a newspaper there that will hire you on.”

            It wasn’t the solution Arthur wanted to hear, but of course it was the only real option.  He’d already known that, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.

 

***

 

            Over a dinner he had cooked himself—ill trusting his mother’s fading strength to prepare food without starting a fire—Arthur tried to explain to her why he couldn’t stay in Manchester, and why he couldn’t very well leave her and the baby alone to fend for themselves.  It was a hard sell, but eventually he was able to convince her to sell the house and move to London.  It was a compromise in the most proper sense of the word:  they were both having to give up things they would have preferred to keep at all costs.

            First thing Monday morning, Arthur looked up one of his former schoolmates, who was  now working as a real estate agent.  She laughed in his face as soon as he turned up in her office—sadly, that had been about her reaction to him when he was seventeen, too—then offered a rather unconvincing condolence on his recent loss.  Arthur did his best to set both aside, and explained to her that his mother needed to sell the family home so she could move to London, where he could take care of her.  That, at least, genuinely struck a chord, and she promised to help his mum get the best possible price for the house.

            With that process started up, Arthur and his mother went to the bank together—leaving Sarah with the neighbour who had been helping take care of her since Nigel’s death—and withdrew a fair chunk of money so Arthur could make a deposit on a place for them to live in London.  Fortunately, between the money his father had been too cheap to spend, and the money Nigel and his wife had earned, his mother was not short on funds.  Then there was nothing to do but call back to the _Herald_ offices in New York to explain the situation to Lou, giving in his notice verbally.  Lou wasn’t pleased by the news—unsurprising, considering how few staffers the _Herald_ had—but he agreed that if Arthur needed a reference, he would give one.

            He was on a train back to London not long after lunch.  With luck, he would be able to line something up in the way of a place to live—and hopefully a job as well—before his original week’s vacation was used up, so he could still use the return plane ticket he’d already paid for.  Then he could pack up his few things, say goodbye to the only people who mattered, and make one last trip across the Atlantic.

            The first day of looking for a new flat didn’t go terribly well.  In fact, it went quite abysmally.  Given the size he wanted, a small house might have been a better idea, except it would be harder to find one for rent, and of course he needed something without stairs, so it would be easier for his mother to get around.

            The day had been so miserable, in fact, that Arthur decided to allow himself a treat he had planned to leave for a celebration after successfully finding something.  At the end of the day, he took the Underground to an offbeat little club where—according to the adverts—the Flaming Creatures were performing nightly sets.  They probably wouldn’t want to see him after he had run off to New York so suddenly all those years ago, but seeing them again and hearing them perform would make Arthur feel better.  He’d just have to make sure he kept out of sight.  It wouldn’t do to wreck their performance by upsetting them.

            Unlike the club in which he had first met them, this one was full of misfits, hangers-on of a vanished era.  Of several vanished eras, in fact; some of the clientele looked more like 1950s-style beatniks than wistful ex-glitter boys and girls trying to grasp at the straws of their past.  The air was so smoky that Arthur had trouble breathing, and had to duck out into the alley to catch his breath in the breaks between sets.

            It was in the last of those breaks that the unexpected full reunion began.

            Arthur was standing there, breathing in the clear(er) air, when the door to the backstage area opened, and Ray stepped out into the alley, too.  He was so focused on his rolling papers that he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone at first.  Arthur ended up holding his breath, terrified of what was going to happen if Ray _did_ notice him, and wondering if he could get back through the door into the club without being seen.  But he could only hold his breath for so long, and all too soon he had to take another breath.

            At the sound of that breath, Ray hid his hands behind his back even before looking around to see who else was in the alley.  On seeing Arthur, he dropped the papers and the marijuana, and ran over, enveloping Arthur in an enormous embrace.  For a few minutes, everything was confusion and chaos and excited, inarticulate shouting.

            That brought the rest of the band out into the alley to see what was going on.

            To his surprise, Arthur was soon being brought into the back to watch the show from backstage, just like he used to.  Somehow, they didn’t seem angry at him for leaving with barely more than a word of farewell.

            As he watched them performing far more energetically than they had been before, Arthur tried to understand that, but he couldn’t.  He had run off and left them without a proper excuse.  They ought to hate him for it.  Why didn’t they?

 

***

 

            Curt was beginning to think about going to bed when the phone rang.  He contemplated not answering it.  People didn’t usually call him at this time of night unless they were wasted, or something terrible had happened.  A drunk Rat or a weepy (or pissed off) Mandy was probably more than he could handle right now.

            But what if it was a real call?  If it was someone in California—or vacationing in Hawaii!—then it wouldn’t be so late for them.  There wasn’t much chance some California record label was calling to offer him a contract—not after 5 pm—but it could still, in theory, be important.  Maybe.  Worth the risk, at least.

            “Hello?”  The sounds of laughter on the other end were not promising.

            “Ah, he finally picked up!”  The voice was a little distant, like he wasn’t talking right into the receiver.  Curt didn’t recognize the voice.  “Here, tell him how much you love him!”

            Fucking—it was a goddamn _prank call_?  From an _adult_?  That was high school shit—no, _middle_ school shit!

            “Shut up, Pearl!”  Even though he wasn’t speaking—shouting—directly into the phone either, the voice, and that wonderful accent, were unmistakable.  Curt found himself grinning even before the voice more timidly said “Curt?” into the phone.

            “Hey, baby,” Curt replied, putting the most sexual charge into it that he could.  “I didn’t know the Flaming Creatures had come to town.”  Men named Pearl were, after all, on very short supply.  Thankfully.

            “No, they ‘aven’t,” Arthur told him.  “I’m in London right now.”  An uncomfortable pause.  “Family business.”

            His old man must’ve croaked.  Better not to ask about it.  “You’re not staying long, right?”

            “I’m back in New York in a few days,” Arthur answered.

            “When’s your flight?  I’ll pick you up at the airport.”  It was months since the last time they had fucked, and suddenly Curt couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather get off with.

            Arthur gave him the flight number and arrival time, which Curt had to write on his hand, because he couldn’t find any paper.  The whole time, the Flaming Creatures were making a racket in the background.  After a particularly loud burst of laughter, Arthur sighed deeply.  “I’m sorry about them,” he said, a bit more quietly.  “They insisted we go out drinking and now they’re all completely pissed.”

            Curt chuckled.  “It happens.”  Typical that Arthur was apparently still sober.  Guy needed to lighten up.

            “Yeah.”  A miserable pause.  “They found your number in my wallet, and…well…”

            “No problem.  You probably shouldn’t be letting drunks go through your pockets, though.”

            “They’ve got a lot more hands than I do,” Arthur replied, making Curt laugh.

            The notion of the four of them pawing Arthur all over with or without permission was—somewhat surprisingly—both a turn-on and annoying at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the opening of the final scene in the chapter, it's actually only about 9 o'clock in New York, which is why Curt is only thinking about turning in, rather than actually doing so. I mean, I suppose technically it could be even later, only 9 in New York is about 4 in the morning in London, so...yeah...Curt's just so bored he's thinking about going to bed early, y'know?
> 
> (I mean, it's not like I just thought of the great opening for the scene and didn't want to let reality make me delete it. I'd neeeeever do that... *cough*)


	3. Chapter 3

**1984**

 

            Arthur had never in his life tried to attend a party he hadn’t been invited to.  Not until that day.  He had read about the party in the gossip columns.  It was being held at the penthouse flat of Quincy Lowe, a movie actor who wasn’t so much bisexual as sexually omnivorous.  But it wasn’t Lowe’s party.  It was Curt Wild’s birthday party.  Arthur hadn’t seen Curt since running into him after the Tommy Stone concert, and he was _desperate_ to see him again, even if only for a few brief minutes.

            So he’d gone out shopping after work, and bought an outfit to wear that was a little less drab than his usual garb.  He fixed Curt’s green pin to his lapel, and tried to do something with his hair that would be a bit more flattering than the way it usually looked.  That still didn’t make him feel ready, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he made his way to the building where the party was to be held.

            Lowe’s flat took up the entire top floor of a very posh building, and as soon as Arthur stepped out of the lift, he found himself faced by a massive, muscular man who stood before the door to the flat, blocking it with his meaty torso.  “You don’t look familiar,” he commented, giving Arthur the once over with his eyes alone.  “You in the wrong place, maybe?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “I need to see Curt Wild.”

            The man on the door laughed.  “You’re gonna hafta do better than that if you expect to get past _me_!”

            “It’s…um…sort of…”  So much for the vain hope that Curt had remembered him and left word that he should be let in.  “Curt dropped this pin in a bar a few months back,” Arthur said, pointing to the pin.  “But I ‘aven’t run into him since, so…”  He didn’t want to have to claim he was there to return it.  Then he might be expected to actually do so.

            The guard leaned in close to peer at the pin, then let out a laugh.  “Fine, c’mon in.”

            That was surprisingly easy!  A rush of confidence bloomed within Arthur, and he started thinking that everything would go according to plan, that it was all under control.

            That illusion lasted about two seconds.

            As soon as he had a good look at the party, Arthur realised he not only had no control, but that his life with the Flaming Creatures hadn’t been so wild as he had once thought.  The air hummed with conversation and laughter, drowning out everything of the music other than the heavy, rhythmic thumping that gave the flat a veritable pulse.  The air was thick with smoke, and half-clad bodies gyrated in and out of sync with the flat’s bass throb.  As Arthur made his way through the flat, looking for Curt, he saw dozens of couples pressed up against walls or writhing on the furniture, some not more than a single thin layer of cloth away from actual intercourse.  None of those couples contained Curt, thankfully.

            Seeing a bar in one of the rooms, Arthur stepped over to get a drink from the bartender.  As he was accepting the bottle of beer, he was appalled to realise that there were three people doing lines right off the counter of the bar.  To his great relief, none of _them_ was Curt, either, but Arthur did recognise all three of them:  a television actress, a Broadway star and a musician whose career kept flitting back and forth across the line between jazz and rock.

            As he continued searching through the mobbed flat, Arthur eventually came to a stop, listening to the music.  It was hard to hear with all the noise, but the song had changed to one of Curt’s.  It was off his Berlin album, and it had always been one of Arthur’s favourite numbers on the album, so he had to just stand there and _appreciate_ it for a while.  As best he could around the ambient noise, anyway.

            “You’re not dancing.”  The voice coming from behind him took Arthur by such a surprise that he dropped his—thankfully empty!—bottle.  As he turned around, Curt gave him a small smile, too self-conscious to be a grin.  “Don’t like the music?”

            “No, I love it!” Arthur assured him, with perhaps a bit too much haste.  “It’s just…I…”  The older he got, the more aware he became of the fact that he was an awful dancer, the more self-conscious he had gotten at the idea of letting go even a little bit.  By now, it was pretty much impossible for him to even try.  “I’m not…much—much of a dancer…”

            “C’mon, it’s easy,” Curt said, his smile widening.

            To Arthur’s surprised delight, Curt took his hand, and started dancing with him.  Or trying to.  Between Arthur’s general reluctance to dance and his extreme nervousness at finally being face to face with Curt again after several months of breathless hoping, he was even more of a wreck at it than usual, barely even able to move his limbs.

            Eventually, as Arthur had known he would, Curt gave up, and dropped his hand again.  “Guess you were right; you’re not much of a dancer.”

            “I’m sorry.”  The last thing he’d wanted to do was disappoint his idol.

            But Curt didn’t look disappointed.  He stepped closer, with that same wide, almost predatory grin on his lips that had graced them nine years ago on that London rooftop.  “Maybe you just prefer a different kind of dancing,” he suggested, his words barely more than a whisper in Arthur’s ear.  “Something a little more intimate…”

            Arthur nodded eagerly, unable to stop smiling.  “Absolutely,” he agreed.

            Almost before he knew what was happening, they were in a bedroom, locking the door behind them.  Intense kisses competed with their urgency to undress each other, but as soon as the clothes were all the way off, kissing lost out entirely to the deep need to fuck.  It was fantastic sex, some of the best Arthur had ever had, and when it was over, he collapsed delightedly on the bed, ready for a sweet, warm nap.

            Only at the sound of the door being opened did Arthur notice that Curt hadn’t joined him on the bed.  Arthur just caught sight of the back of him as Curt left the room.  He had put his trousers back on, but had left his shirt behind.

            Worried, Arthur hurriedly got dressed again, continually hoping that Curt would be coming right back—to get his shirt, at least, even if not to get Arthur.  But by the time Arthur was fully dressed, Curt still hadn’t returned, leaving Arthur with a quandary.  Should he take Curt’s shirt to him?  Or should he leave it behind, on the assumption that it would be easier for Curt to return for it than it would be for Arthur to find Curt again?  Sadly, the second thought prevailed, and Arthur left the room without the garment.

            He had barely stepped out of the room when Arthur heard a voice saying “I guess I owe you fifty bucks.  It was a man this time.”

            Looking around him, Arthur couldn’t identify the speaker, but he was painfully aware of the fact that almost everyone in sight of the door was now smirking at him.  Why?  Why would they find it funny?  Half the couples he had seen at this party were either two men or two women!  If it was all right for them to snog in public, why wasn’t it all right for him and Curt to duck into a bedroom for a quick shag?

            As Arthur ducked between the mocking party-goers, he did his best to ignore their smiles.  What they thought didn’t matter.  What mattered was finding Curt again.  Having a second one-night stand was better than nothing, but it certainly wasn’t the outcome he’d been wishing for.

            But trying to find anything or anyone in this morass of a party was futile.  After ten or twenty minutes of trying, Arthur collapsed onto an empty sofa, depressed and frustrated.  For all he knew, Curt had left the party.  Or he might be descending back into the hell of drugs that he had supposedly defeated.  Or worse, he might have gone off behind another locked door with someone else.  With so many unpleasant explanations to choose from, Arthur hardly knew which to be depressed about first.

            In an effort to avoid depression—or the worst of it, at any rate—Arthur started watching the other people in the room.  Ordinarily, he might attempt to be subtle about it, pretending he had something else on his mind, but in this case that seemed like so much wasted effort; they were in no state to notice him.  Sort of.  They _did_ glance over at him from time to time and start cracking jokes to each other—thankfully, he couldn’t hear the jokes, but he could see them burst out in riotous laughter—but none of them seemed very aware of the fact that he was watching them.

            The crowd seemed to be made up largely of people in their late twenties to early forties, and all of them were showing signs of being either intoxicated or high.  Then again, the smoke filling the air was at least half marijuana, so it was hard _not_ to be at least a little high.  The dancing on display was almost as bad as some of Arthur’s past attempts:  most of the people didn’t seem to be aware of the rhythm of the music, or even of the music at all, and simply wiggled their bodies to some imaginary beat in their heads.  Between the drink and the drugs, they did at least seem to be enjoying themselves, though.  Just at the moment, Arthur envied them that, in truth.

            Giving in to his morose thoughts, Arthur shut his eyes and rested his head against the back of the sofa he was sitting on.  He knew he should probably just give up and go home, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.  If there was even a shred of hope, no matter how small, he had to cling to it.

            He had barely had that thought when he felt someone sitting down beside him.  Arthur opened his eyes to see Curt smiling slyly at him.  “So, did you bring me a present other than that sweet ass?” he asked

            Arthur smiled, and shook his head.  “Didn’t know what else you’d want,” he said.  Actually, it hadn’t even occurred to him that ‘birthday presents’ might typically be on offer at this sort of party.  Then again, maybe they weren’t.  “Why, is something wrong with it?  Didn’t you like the fit?”

            Curt let out a brief laugh.  “No, the size was just perfect,” he said, putting a hand on Arthur’s thigh.  “But you never know.  Might wear off.”

            “If It does, I’ll provide more,” Arthur promised.

            “Sounds good.  But how do I contact you?”

            “Oh!”  Arthur dug his wallet out of his pocket and fished through it until he found what he was looking for.  It wasn’t really a proper business card, but it did have his name and number on it, as well as the _Herald_ ’s information.  “Here.”

            Arthur handed over the card, and Curt checked out both sides before putting it in his own wallet.  “Thanks,” he said, and he really sounded like he meant it.

            They talked a little more on inconsequential topics, then abandoned talk in favour of making out.  Even back in the ‘70s, Arthur had rarely had the courage to publically snog another man, but here it felt so right, so natural.  _Curt_ made it feel so natural.

            It was so fantastic that Arthur quickly lost all sense of the world outside their embrace, aware only of the feel of Curt’s lips and tongue, of his hands caressing Arthur’s body, and the feel of his body under Arthur’s hands.  His sense of the rest of the world was rudely restored to him when the words “Sorry to interrupt, Curt,” made Curt abruptly pull out of the kiss and look at the interloper.

            “What?!” Curt demanded.  How could he be enraged so soon after such magnificent kissing?

            The man who had interrupted them—Quincy Lowe himself!—just smiled, unaffected by Curt’s anger.  “Emergency situation.  Needs you.”

            Curt scowled.  “Can’t you—”

            “No, it has to be you.”  Quincy’s words were accompanied by a slight wink.  Arthur could think of a lot of things that wink might mean, and he didn’t like any of them.

            Curt sighed.  “All right, fine.  But you owe me a big one.”  He turned to Arthur, and gave him a brief kiss, barely more than the grazing of lips against lips.  “I’ll be right back,” he claimed, before getting up and walking away with Quincy.

            After that, what could Arthur do but sit there and wait for him?  He settled back into a comfortable position on the sofa, determined to wait as long as it took.

            He had all but fallen asleep when he became aware of someone standing near him.  Turning his attention to the new arrival, Arthur was surprised to see Mandy Slade, looking at him with disappointed eyes above pursed lips.  “Er…hello…?” Arthur said, not sure what else there even _was_ to say.

            “I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be _you_ ,” Mandy commented.

            “Expecting what to be me?”  It was a stupid question, and he knew that, but he had to ask.  Especially since his brain hadn’t quite fully processed the notion that he was waking up rather than going to sleep.

            “You know, the party’s been winding down for half an hour.  Why are you still here?”  Arthur didn’t answer— _couldn’t_ answer—and eventually Mandy continued.  “I suppose you’re waiting for Curt.”

            “He said he’d be right back.”  Even to Arthur, it sounded like a weak excuse.

            Mandy let out a disgusted sigh.  “And suppose he _does_ come back?  Then what?  You don’t really think he’s going to take you seriously, do you?”

            “Why not?”

            “Curt doesn’t do relationships.”  Mandy shook her head.  “He didn’t before Brian, and after what Brian did to him, he’s certainly not going to do them now.”

            What was he supposed to say to that?  Was there _anything_ that even _could_ be said in response to that?  “Still, I…”  It was no use.  There really wasn’t any way to respond.

            Mandy shook her head.  “It’s a free country.”  Sort of.  “Do what you want.  But don’t blame _me_ when you get hurt.  I did try to warn you.”

            With that, she walked off, and left Arthur to continue waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.


	4. Chapter 4

**1986**

 

            Waking up in Curt’s arms was a beautiful thing that Arthur had only experienced twice before.  Under these circumstances, that only made it worse.  Realistically, he should have explained everything last night.  But he’d been left mentally exhausted by spending most of the plane trip worrying, and he had needed the relaxation.  And it seemed unlikely that Curt would have still wanted to sleep with him if they’d had the conversation last night.

            That didn’t mean they didn’t need to have it, though.  No matter how desperately Arthur didn't want to say any of it.  No matter how much he wished it wasn't true.

            Curt was soon stirring, surprisingly enough.  “You’re up early,” Arthur commented as Curt got out of the bed.

            “Well, you’ve gotta go to work soon, don’t you?”

            Arthur sighed, and sat up, shaking his head.  “No.  I’ve given in my notice.”

            “You’re quitting your job?”

            Was there any point in sugar-coating it?  Arthur chewed on his lower lip as he tried to come to a decision.  Trying to pretend it was less than it was didn’t seem useful, or even respectful.  And putting it off wasn’t going to change anything.  It might even make it worse.

            “Arthur?”

            “I…”  Arthur stopped almost before he started, reorganising his thoughts in his head.  “I only came back to New York to get my things and say my goodbyes,” he sighed.  “I ‘ave to move to London to take care of my mum.”

            “What the fuck?  What about me?!”

            “What _about_ you?” Arthur snapped back.  Curt was _not_ going to try to make this about himself, surely.  How much of a hypocrite could he be?

            “You’re dumping me for your _mother_?”

            “I could only dump someone I’m actually in a relationship with.”

            “You wanna say that when you’re _not_ sitting naked in my bed?!” Curt snarled.

            “Curt, in two years we’ve had sex five times.  That is _not_ a relationship!”

            “Six times.”

            Arthur moaned, and held his face in his hands.  “I’ve been keeping very careful count.  Last night made five.  And even if it didn’t, six times in two years is still not a relationship.”  He lowered his hands and looked back at Curt.  “Really, what did you want me to say to my mum?  ‘You ‘ave to move halfway ‘round the bloody world because there’s a man in New York who might want to shag me every six months’?”

            “Don’t you have a brother who could take care of her?”

            “I _had_ a brother, yes, but that was his funeral I just went to!  My mum’s all alone now, and she’s not too well, and can’t look after herself.”  Why was he even having to explain this?  Wasn’t it obvious?

            “Why the fuck can’t you just put her in a old folks’ home like everyone else?”

            Arthur sighed, getting out the bed.  Suddenly, he didn’t feel right still sitting there.  “Retirement homes are normal in America, not in England.  I couldn’t do that to her.  She’s the one person in my family who _didn’t_ hate me for bein’ who I really am.”  He shook his head.  “I tried to ask her to come to New York, but she wasn’t ‘aving any of it.  If we’d been in a real, serious relationship, that would ‘ave been another issue, but two or three nights in the course of a year…”  Part of him was wishing fervently that Curt would come to some realisation on hearing those words, somehow decide that he couldn’t do without Arthur, that he’d be willing to try anything, even a serious romance, to keep him in New York.  He knew it wasn’t going to happen, but he couldn’t help wishing for it.

            “How fucking selfish can you get?”

            “Selfish?!” Arthur repeated.  “You’re askin’ me to abandon my own mother just so I can be one more notch on your bedpost, even though it’s got so many notches already that it’s like to fall apart!”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”  Squinting suspiciously like that, his long blond hair a fright, and his chin unshaven, Curt looked almost terrifying, like some sort of barbarian capable of ripping a man in two with his bare hands.

            “How many people have you slept with in the last two years?” Arthur asked, carefully enunciating each syllable, to make very sure that Curt couldn’t misunderstand either his words or his meaning.

            Curt shrugged, his face going back to normal.  “Dunno.  A lot.  What’s that matter?”

            “It’s not normal to not even know the number, Curt.  It’s unhealthy.”  Especially in a world filled with AIDS and other STDs.  In all five of their encounters in the ‘80s, Curt had used a condom with Arthur, so hopefully he was using them with all his other partners, too, but Arthur didn’t have the nerve to ask, or even broach the subject.

            “C’mon, be reasonable,” Curt replied, his voice teetering between a sigh and a whine.  “How many people have _you_ fucked in the last two years?” he added, his tone implying that he expected to hear that Arthur was being a hypocrite.

            “Just one.”

            “Really?”  Curt looked surprised for a moment, then started looking jealous.  “Who?  Not one of the Creatures, right?”

            Arthur sighed deeply.  “No, not ‘one in addition to you.’  Just plain _one_.  As in, only you.”

            “Shit.  Why?  You’re really hot.  You could get just about anyone you want.”

            “I don’t want anyone but you.”

            “Then why are you moving back to England?” Curt countered.

            “Because my mother needs me, and you don’t even _want_ me!”

            “Go on and go, then!” Curt shouted, before storming into the loo and slamming the door behind him.

            Realistically, Arthur knew he shouldn’t have expected any better.  Curt was used to getting his own way, and didn’t know how to handle it when someone refused to give it to him.  And he was used to Arthur acting like an adoring fan, rather than standing up for himself.  Still, he hadn’t been expecting such a childish display of temper.  A man fast approaching forty really shouldn’t have the same reaction to losing an argument an eight year old might.

            Arthur slipped into his clothes before approaching the closed door to the loo.  He could hear running water from within.  Sounded like the sink.  “Curt?”  Arthur rapped on the door with his knuckles as he spoke.

            “Are you still here?”  Curt’s voice was laced with a cruel humour that failed to hide the hurt beneath it.

            “I was just gettin’ ready to leave.”  Though he’d have liked a chance to use the loo first, but…well, there’d be one at the subway station.  Not as clean, and he’d have to be careful no one stole his suitcase, but it was better than holding it in all the way back to his flat.  “I just…I want you to understand that I wanted to stay in New York.  I had no choice about this.”

            The water in the sink shut off, as if Curt wanted to make sure Arthur could hear his derisive snort clearly.  “Why would you want to stay here if you’re so unhappy with what we’ve got?” he asked, as if he had been willing to play any role in Arthur’s life other than infrequent nocturnal visitor.

            “Because I love you.”

            If Curt had any response to that, Arthur couldn’t hear it.  But he also didn’t unlock the door.

            Eventually, Arthur admitted defeat, and left the flat.

 

**1989**

 

            It had been a long day, and Arthur was glad to be going home.  As he made his way through traffic, Jack Fairy’s voice coming through the car’s radio, he couldn’t help reflecting that spending the day being fêted for a story over a year old—and not terribly important to begin with, in the grand scheme of things—was actually far more draining than even the worst slog of investigative research.  Not that being celebrated like that had been in the schedule:  Arthur had gone to take a leadership role in a youth seminar intended to teach young people how to become proper journalists.  Only it turned out they were rather unexpectedly excited to meet him.  It was hard to say whether it was more flattering or embarrassing, but Arthur suspected the latter.

            The song on the radio ended, and was replaced with the voice of the disk jockey, who spent a little while discussing Jack’s career and the silence that had replaced it for the last decade, before introducing the next song, which was tied to Jack Fairy by the 1975 album the two singers had released together from West Berlin…

            Arthur turned up the volume, soaking in every note.  It was from Curt’s new album, and had a very different flavour from his older material, but it still resonated in Arthur’s soul the way only Curt Wild could.  Curt’s voice sounded a bit more hoarse than it used to; he was obviously still smoking, despite the ever-growing evidence of all the dangers of cigarettes.  Plainly, his new manager needed to do something to make him quit.

            The song was still going when Arthur pulled into the driveway, but he couldn’t bring himself to switch off and lose a note of it.  Instead he just sat there in the car, garnering curious and confused stares from passersby, until the song ended.  Only then could he turn off the car and go inside the house.

            Thundering little feet were audible even before the joyous exclamation of “Daddy!”

            Arthur crouched down as his niece came barrelling around the corner to collide with his legs.  “Were you a good girl while I was gone, Sarah?” he asked, tousling her hair.  “Didn’t give Gran any trouble?”

            “I’m _alllllways_ good!” Sarah insisted, with a cute little smile.  Then she extended her arms towards his face.  “Up!” she shouted.  “I want up!”

            “Well, if you’ve been a good girl, I guess I can.”  Arthur lifted the little girl up to sit on the back of his neck, one leg draped to either side of his head.  Tiny little fingers dug into his hair.  Once she seemed secure, Arthur stood up again, making Sarah let out a shriek of delight.

            As Arthur slowly progressed towards the parlour and the sound of the telly, making sure to keep far enough from the light fixtures that Sarah couldn’t grab hold of one again, the little girl began telling him all about the fun things she had done all day.  He interjected the occasional reaction as appropriate, but every time she called him ‘Daddy,’ it made his heart ache.  She knew he wasn’t her father.  She sometimes dreamed about her real parents, waking up screaming for her mother, father and brothers.  Why did she insist on addressing him so wrongly?  When she’d been learning to talk, he had always referred to himself as ‘Uncle Arthur,’ encouraging her to address him thus, but she never had.  Mum insisted that it was a good thing the girl loved him so much, but Arthur didn’t think love was the issue at all.  Pretending he was someone he wasn’t couldn’t be good for Sarah’s mental health.

            Arthur found his mother reading a book, doing her best to ignore the grating children’s programme running on the telly.  Sarah clamoured for the show excitedly, telling Arthur about all her favourite characters—just as she had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that—until Arthur set her down again so she could resume watching her programme.

            “How was your day?” Mum asked, as Arthur sat down on the couch.

            He shrugged.  “Not as long as it felt.”  When her expression spoke of her desire for a more complete summary, Arthur grudgingly told his mother more about the day’s events.

            “And did you meet anyone?” she asked.

            “I met a lot of people.  That’s the way these things operate.  If it was only a few—”

            “You know that isn’t what I meant,” Mum said, her lips pursing with reproach.  “No one you might want to know better?  Some pretty girl?  Or…”  Her eyes flashed towards Sarah, then looked back at Arthur, full of weight.

            Arthur sighed.  There was no reason to shelter Sarah from Arthur’s sexual preferences.  Especially considering they were now entirely irrelevant.  “I’m not really in the market for a partner right now, Mum.”

            “Why not?  You must be lonely, living this way.”

            “Not really.”  The real reason he wasn’t looking for anyone, of course, was that there was only one Curt Wild, and he was half the world away, and probably still hated Arthur for having put family before sexual desire.  “I’ve got you and Sarah; she doesn’t leave any free time to be lonely in.”  That much, at least, was true.  The child was very determined to occupy at least 115% of everyone’s time.

            Mum laughed, but she looked disappointed.  Deep down, no matter how much she claimed she didn’t mind the idea of Arthur preferring men, she was probably still hoping he would settle down and give her more grandchildren to replace the ones she had lost.  Her hopes were in vain; there was a lot he was willing to do for his family, but that went far beyond it.


	5. Chapter 5

**1990**

 

            Part of Curt had actually wanted his tour not to leave the country.  He had too many memories associated with various parts of Europe, and really didn’t want to have any of them activated.  And there were a couple of exes he really didn’t want to run into.  Or maybe he did.  He wasn’t sure.  Honestly, he’d have preferred to stay completely drunk the whole time, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it, but then his manager started looking into audience reactions to drunk rock stars doing dumb shit like forgetting their own songs or falling off the stage, and decided she couldn’t allow herself to be connected to anything like that, which led to her enforcing her despotic will on Curt’s tour, keeping him as dry as a Sunday school teacher during Prohibition.  At least the Rats had the sympathy to stay dry with him, but it would have been a lot more fun if they’d been able to get drunk every night like every other band on tour did.

            Of course, the tour had to _start_ right in the worst place:  London.

            With all the memories he had of London—all the good times now soured by time and the things the other people in those memories had done since then—Curt really should have been excused from having to perform there.  There were lots of other cities in the UK; why couldn’t he have skipped London and gone straight to some other city in England?  But his manager insisted that Curt’s new record had sold better in England than in any other country—somehow, Curt couldn’t help blaming Brian for that, both for the low sales in America and the higher sales in England—so he had to have multiple London shows, and then hit every other major city across the entire fucking island.  Only then would he be permitted to move on to the continent.

            As he was getting ready for the first performance of the European branch of the tour, Curt found himself going over a mental list of possibilities instead of the routine for the concert.  Of the many people he knew in London, which ones were going to be at the show?  Some he could rule out completely, but others…there were a lot of the others who might be there, and might manage to get themselves invited to the obnoxious reception afterwards.  There was a good chance one or more of the Venus in Furs might show up.  That was fine; they were good guys, and he’d always gotten on pretty well with them.  Maybe there’d be a miracle and Jack would appear at the meet-and-greet.  That’d be fucking great.  There were plenty of others Curt knew in London who might or might not show up; people from the club circuit, the rest of Brian’s old entourage, ‘friends’ he’d made while out hunting for drugs…mostly people who had no chance of being allowed into the reception, even if they tried to get in.

            The problem was that the thing was largely being held for the press corps.  That meant the last person on the entire island Curt wanted to see had a good chance of being there.  Even if he wasn’t assigned to be there, as a reporter, he’d just have to wave his credentials at the bouncers, and they’d let him in.  Probably.  Curt didn’t really know the details of how that worked.  But he did know that no amount of professions of love could counteract the way they’d broken up, or how used Curt had felt when that lying sack of shit had broken that story.  Even if the story _had_ revived interest in Curt’s career just when it seemed ready to give up the ghost.  That didn’t excuse the fact that Arthur wouldn’t have known half that shit if Curt hadn’t told it to him in their private moments together.  He’d had no right to publish it to the world like that.  Especially not after he’d run off back home like a proper momma’s boy, abandoning the man he claimed to love.  If he had the balls to show up, it wasn’t going to be pretty…

            In the last minute plans before the concert started, Curt called over the band to make a few special arrangements.  “We gotta change the encore songs,” he said.  Though his old hits were sprinkled through the main concert, they had also left out a few of the most popular, holding them back for the encore.

            “Why?”

            “We’re not doing ‘Gimme Danger’ in London, that’s why,” Curt replied.  There was just no way.  There were a lot of emotions that were supposed to show up in that song, but anger wasn’t one of them.  Besides…

            “Are you high?”

            “C’mon, it’s one of our most popular songs.  We can’t leave it out.”

            “Yeah, we can!” Curt insisted.  “I’m not doing it here!”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I fucking said so!”  With that, he stormed off to his dressing room, hoping his manager hadn’t managed to intercept his instructions to the venue staff.  When he opened the mini-fridge, the pleasing sight of a six pack of beer met his eyes.  Good.  If that was here, then the hard stuff should be, too.  Curt turned the dressing room inside out, and didn’t find even one more drop of booze.  He did find that the door had no lock, though, no doubt because people planned to pop in periodically and check on him, in case he’d managed to get his hands on any substances that he might use to have a good time.  “Motherfucker!”  She must have thought the beer would placate him enough to make him overlook the total fucking lack of enough alcohol to get drunk on.

            Still, something was better than nothing, and by the time the concert started, Curt had drunk half the beers.  That had him feeling a bit more mellow by the time he got out on stage.

            The audience was almost deafening as soon as he set foot in front of them.  First time he’d had that experience on this tour; the audiences back home had been happy to see him, but hardly excited, let alone screaming in their uncontrollable thrill.  Their energy washed over Curt like a wave, massaging him, infecting him, egging him on into giving the performance everything he had.

            And that he did; he hadn’t put that much into a performance since 1978.  He was exhausted enough that he hoped they wouldn’t be screaming for an encore when the show was over, but of course they did.  And for a second one after the first.  And a third after the second.

            They didn’t usually do three encores, but they didn’t even hesitate; everyone was that caught up in the audience’s delight.  While Curt was catching his breath, the band started the intro to ‘Gimme Danger’ and the audience went insane.  They were screaming so loudly that Curt could barely hear his cue, despite that the drums were right behind him and the amps directly to either side of him.

            As always, the song drained Curt in ways no other did.  Even if three encores _hadn’t_ been their predetermined maximum, he couldn’t have done another song if he’d wanted to.  He practically needed help getting back up when he fell to his knees, exhausted, at the end of the song.  Exhausted or not, Curt only had about five minutes to wash off the sweat before having to go to the obnoxious meet and greet bullshit.  His shower was just long enough for him to remember that he had specifically told the guys that he wasn’t gonna do ‘Gimme Danger’ here, and then the fuckers had done it anyway.  He knew he really ought to have been pissed at them, but there was no better antidote for anger than an audience like that one.  Curt was in the kind of mood where he’d laugh it off if someone punched him in the face, as long as they did it with a smile.

            The reception was being held in a meeting room or some shit, not far off from the dressing room.  The yammering clowns were spilling out of the meeting room into the general backstage area, even with their food and drink.  If any of those motherfuckers spilled their drinks on Curt’s equipment, he was gonna take it out of their asses!

            The drinks looked pretty good, though.  Curt started struggling his way through the throng, trying to get to the bar in the other room.  With all the reporters trying to ask him questions and all the god-knows-who wanting to congratulate him, it took fucking _forever_!

            Worth it, though.  The bartender hadn’t gotten the memo that Curt wasn’t supposed to be given booze, so he managed to get a massive glass, holding about half a bottle of the good stuff.  With that in hand, he didn’t mind the questions so much.  Though it helped that they’d apparently been told going in that they weren’t allowed to ask about Brian.

            Curt had gotten through about half of his glass of gin by the time he felt the heat of the amorous stare that was burning a hole in his back.  He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know who it was coming from, but he couldn’t help himself.  He was positive it wouldn’t matter; he was immune now, he had to be.

            He wasn’t.

            Somehow, Arthur was prettier than Curt remembered him being, and his gaze was like a magnet, pulling Curt in.  Once their eyes met, Curt couldn’t look away, couldn’t even turn his body.  He just stood there, staring over his shoulder like a freak.

            “Something wrong?”

            The voice let Curt finally break the eye contact, and look back at the man he’d been speaking to.  Another reporter.  He hadn’t seemed interesting or attractive when he’d first come over, and now he seemed terminally dull.  But at least he wasn’t Arthur.  “No, nothing.  Just thought I saw someone I know.”

            “Not…”  The reporter stopped, and cleared his throat.  “…an ex?”  That prohibition against mentioning Brian must have been really strong.  Well, Curt’s manager could be pretty fucking scary when she wanted to be.

            “Not the one you’re thinking of,” Curt laughed.  Thank God for the booze, or he’d never be able to laugh about people like those two!  He took another swig from his glass to make sure he’d stay laughing.

            The reporter nodded, and went back to his boring-ass question.  He must have worked for a really serious music magazine, to ask such a detailed question about composition style and shit.  It was exactly the kind of shit that Curt liked to pretend he’d never even heard of.  By now, it was pretty much _required_ that he keep up the pretense.  Yeah, he’d read a lot of books on musical theory and compositional structure, and all that conservatory shit that didn’t seem to have any bearing on his music, but he couldn’t very well _admit_ that, could he?  Didn’t really fit the ‘raised by wolves’ myth very well.  Didn’t fit the raised by psychopaths in a trailer park reality, either, for that matter…

            There was a fine art to answering questions like that.  Curt’s honest impulse was to tell the guy he needed to get laid.  No one who wasn’t in need of a good screwing would ask a question like that after a concert like the one Curt had just given.  But he knew better than to say that.  Knew better than to tell him to fuck off, too.  He had to dismiss the question with the same barbarian act he’d always put on for the press, but he had to be careful.  Didn’t wanna be rude enough to piss the guy off and make him give the concert a bad review.  Couldn’t say anything that might imply he was still getting high regularly.  And if he said anything that could be twisted around to suggest that Curt didn’t really write his own songs?  Career over, man.

            No one ever gave Curt enough credit for handling himself in these situations.  They all thought he was just a natural animal, saying whatever the drugs or the drink forced into his head.  Even Brian hadn’t appreciated Curt’s ability to handle himself; he had always insisted that Curt have a half dozen Oscar Wilde quotes to use in any situation.  Sure, Brian had said it was because those fit _his_ oeuvre better, but after a while it had been hard to look at it as anything but that he hadn’t trusted Curt to use his own words.

            No matter what Curt had felt, he reflected as the disappointed reporter went away again, Brian had never really loved him.  He had loved the sex, and he had loved the attention their relationship got him, but he hadn’t wanted to let Curt be himself.  He had wanted Curt to be his stage self all the fucking time.  God, was that exhausting!

            Curt took a long drink from his glass to clear his mind of all thoughts of Brian.  Only then did he notice what had happened while he had been lost in thought.  With no one talking to him, Curt’s body had turned as if of its own accord, until he was facing that burning stare again.  Fixed and unwavering, expressionless.

            Did he expect Curt to sneak out of his own reception to fuck him on another rooftop?

            Did he think he’d be forgiven that easily for having crushed what they had?  Just because he showed up looking hotter than hell?  Did he really think Curt was that easy?

            The arrogance of it probably would have bothered Curt a lot less if he couldn’t feel the blood making its way down towards his cock, lingering, waiting for its opportunity.  It was like his body had a mind of its own, and that mind wanted nothing other than to fuck Arthur.

            A couple of giddy fans came over to distract him.  Contest winners who were so excited to meet him that they couldn’t talk straight.  One about eighteen, the other maybe twenty.  Under ordinary circumstances, Curt might have been tempted to take them back to his dressing room—even though the door didn’t lock—and let them get what they really wanted.  They weren’t all that good-looking, but Curt wasn’t usually all that picky, and excitement could make up for a lot.  But he couldn’t force his cock even to twitch while he was looking at these two giggling girls.  It knew there was someone better here, and it wasn’t gonna accept second best.  No, these girls didn’t even rate second.  More like fifteenth.  Maybe lower.

            Once the girls were gone, Curt scanned the room with his eyes, looking to find someone else he could talk to—better yet, someone hotter he could fuck.  But all he found was that Arthur had moved where he was standing.  Further from the door back to the main backstage area, more to the side of the room.  Closer to Curt.  He could feel the heat with every part of his body now.

            This wasn’t fucking fair.

            His body was selling him down the goddamned river.

            Curt did his best to fight it off.  Tried to remember how it had felt, seeing that story on the news.  Hearing the whole world told about how he’d been bullied to keep Brian’s secret…

            “Hey, Curt!”  A familiar voice cut through the general chatter.

            Most of the smile that Curt flashed at him wasn’t really for Trevor.  “Good to see you,” Curt said.  Good to see anyone who might distract him.

            “Fabulous show, mate,” Trevor assured him, shaking his hand warmly.  “Best I’ve seen in a long time.”

            “Thanks.  Haven’t heard from you in a while.  Still in the industry?”

            Trevor shrugged.  “More backstage now, but basically.  Don’t really know much else, do I?”

            Curt sighed.  “Yeah, I hear that.”  The only other way he’d be able to make money would be if he wrote some kind of tell-all book, but even if he did, he’d have to hire a co-author, ‘cause everyone thought he was fucking illiterate; they’d never believe he was capable of writing a book on his own.

            Trevor was standing in just the wrong place.  All it took was the tiniest angle of Curt’s head to see Arthur.  The longer they kept talking, the harder it was to keep looking at Trevor.  That heated gaze pulled at him.  Every time he caught himself returning it, Curt forced himself to look back at the man he was talking to, but Trevor didn’t have much to compete with that kind of lure.

            “Curt?  Hey, you all right?”

            The question made Curt realize he was not only staring, but also licking his lips.  Fuck.  He drained his glass—not that there was all that much left in it—and turned back to Trevor.  “Sorry, man, I gotta go.”  He shook Trevor’s hand again, pressing his empty glass into it while he was at it.  “We’ll talk later.”

            He didn’t wait for an answer.  Just set off for the door.  When he got there, he paused, looking back.  Arthur hadn’t moved to follow him yet, but he had turned to watch him go.  Curt’s tongue slipped back out to moisten his lips just a little, unconsciously.  They were a lot closer now.  How did no one else feel the heat passing between them?  It was setting his blood on fire…

            There must have been something determined in the way he was walking, because no one tried to talk to him as Curt crossed the backstage area to his dressing room.  He didn’t have long to debate whether he should sit down or get out a beer or what before he could feel the presence on the other side of the door.  The footsteps approaching, stopping, a moment of hesitation.  Curt could just imagine it:  the hand raising to knock on the door, drawing back, reaching for the handle, pulling away again, lingering helplessly in the air, torn between propriety and sheer fucking desire.

            Desire won.  The door opened without a knock.

            The hesitant, almost fearful look on Arthur’s face was the last straw.  Curt couldn’t wait for conversation or bother with nostalgia.  He needed this too bad.

            Once the door was shut, Curt shoved Arthur back against it, kissing him with an intensity that was matched, if not outdone, within seconds.  Arthur was wearing a button down shirt, so they didn’t even have to stop kissing to get the thing out of the way, and Curt hadn’t bothered putting his shirt back on—he was still supposed to be in performance mode, after all—so their lips didn’t have to part until Curt had pushed Arthur’s pants down, desperate to get on with it.

            If Arthur had complained about being fucked against the door, Curt would have said it was because there was no lock, and this was the only way to keep anyone from walking in on them.  But he didn’t complain.  He rarely ever did.

            Curt didn’t want to do this the usual way.  Even as much as he’d wanted— _needed_ —to bury his cock in Arthur’s ass, he was still pissed off, too.  So he wasn’t gonna give him a reach-around.  If Arthur was gonna get off, he’d just have to do it himself.  But Curt’s hand started moving in that direction on its own, out of habit, and Curt took control only moments before it’d be too late.  Using it to stroke Arthur’s surprisingly defined abs, sliding up across his chest, giving in to the temptation to tweak a nipple, which caused a delightful gasp that made Curt’s hand linger, playing with the nipples a bit longer.

            He moved his hand further up, holding on at the throat for a moment before moving up to the face.  It hadn’t been Curt’s idea—not that he was in a state to have any thoughts other than how fucking good this felt—but Arthur got one of his fingers into his mouth, sucking on it like he would Curt’s cock.  Curt wouldn’t have expected that would do much to him, but it just about made him come early.  He took it as long as he could, then pulled his hand back, dragging his finger out of the unwilling mouth.

            Then he couldn’t help himself, and grabbed Arthur’s cock, enjoying the moan of pleasure it caused.

            It wasn’t long before it was all over.

            As Curt was pulling back out, he couldn’t help reflecting that it was the best sex he’d had in years.  Good enough that he needed to sit down.

            There wasn’t a proper chair, just a bench near the make-up table, about twice as wide as it needed to be.  Perfect for sharing with one other person.  Curt made his way over to sit down, wishing his manager hadn’t decided to swipe all his cigarettes.  He could use a smoke; the realization he’d forgotten to use a condom was giving him the shakes.

            Arthur was still leaning against the door.  He’d turned around now, his back against the door and his pants still down around his ankles.  “God, I’ve missed you,” he said, his words sounding like part of the heavy breathing he still had going on.

            “You don’t get to say that,” Curt told him.  He’d wanted it to be a snarl, but he was still feeling too good; he couldn’t get out anything even stern, let alone angry.  “You’re the one who left.”

            Arthur didn’t argue, but he didn’t admit to it, either.  He just dropped his gaze to the floor.

            Curt sighed.  Looking at him like that was making him start feeling guilty, even though he wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong.  “Don’t stand there leaning against the door.  You’ll get come all over your ass.”

            Arthur laughed.  “Bit late for that, isn’t it?”

            Curt just patted the bench beside him.  Arthur’s cheeks flushed slightly to accompany a particularly shy smile, and he hurried to pull up his pants and his briefs before crossing the room to join Curt.  Turned out Curt had been wrong:  the glistening spray of Arthur’s semen was untouched on the door just next to where he’d been leaning.

            As soon as Arthur sat down, he started kissing Curt.  It wasn’t the frantic kissing from earlier; this was soft and sweet, the kind of kissing that could really suck a man in and trick him into thinking he’s loved when he isn’t.  Curt had learned his lesson about that kind of kisses only to the extent that he knew they were dangerous and should be avoided.  That meant, at least, that he had the sense to push Arthur away, and then quickly put his dick back in his pants before it could decide to get hard again.

            Of course, touching it, feeling the residue on the skin, only made Curt remember what a mistake he’d made.  “So…felt pretty tight,” Curt commented, trying to sound gruff and uninterested.  “Guess it’s been a while since you took it up the ass.”

            “Four years.  You know that.”

            Fuck.  Arthur was _not_ going to make this easy, was he?  “You’ve been playing the butch lately?” Curt asked, forcing his voice to laugh.

            Arthur sighed.  “No.”

            “But you’ve fucked chicks, right?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “That was the first sex I’ve had in four years.”

            “Why?”  Curt looked at Arthur appraisingly.  He was as hot as ever—probably more so, considering he had a much better haircut than he did back in New York—so why wouldn’t he have been scoring all over the place?  Even if he had decided no man could live up to Curt’s example…  “Are you…you’re gay, not bi?”

            A shrug was the answer at first.  “Depends how you look at it.”

            “I wouldn’t think that was something that could ‘depend’ on anything.”  Either you fuck everyone, or you don’t.

            “It’s my inclination to say I’m bisexual.  I like girls, too…but I’ve never actually had sex with one.”

            “Too picky?”

            “Too busy, lately.  But yeah, too picky, too.  There ‘ave been women who were interested, but…they never really caught my fancy.”

            Curt couldn’t resist the urge to chuckle.  “Makes sense.  If you’re gonna fuck men, you gotta do it while you’re still young and hot.  Women can wait.”

            “Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

            “Chicks like an older man.”  Turning forty hadn’t done anything to make women less interested in Curt, but guys were starting to drift away.  Or was _he_ the one losing interest in _them_ …?

            “I suppose so.”  He didn’t sound much like he meant that, and it led to an awkward pause.  “What about you?” Arthur asked, finally breaking the silence.  “Are you still makin’ it a party game to leave your shirt off after you score, so everyone will know you did it?”

            Curt coughed uncomfortably.  Until Arthur attended two of his birthday parties in a row, there hadn’t ever been anyone he’d fucked at two separate parties, so none of the people he was actually fucking ever seemed to have caught on before.  “No, I…I don’t do that anymore.”  Partially because that kind of party was starting to leave him behind.

            “Good.  That was degradin’ for us.”

            Ugh, was he trying to commune with all the other people Curt had ever fucked at a party?  Not cool.

            “What about outside parties?”

            Curt glanced into Arthur’s eyes briefly, then looked back down at his lap.  The leather was starting to look awfully creased and worn around the crotch.  He’d been wearing these pants for too many concerts.

            “Curt?”

            “I don’t…I’m not fucking as many people as I used to, no,” he admitted, finally producing something that approached a snarl.  “And that—that was the first time in years that I’ve forgotten to use a condom.”  At least, he was pretty sure it was.  He didn’t get high anymore, but he still got drunk enough from time to time that he could wake up in the morning lying next to someone he didn’t remember fucking.

            “Glad to hear it,” Arthur said quietly.  There was some subtle tone to his voice Curt hadn’t heard before.  Anger?  Condescension?  Almost abrupt, whatever it was.

            They fell silent again, for long enough that Curt had time to listen to the commotion from the reception outside  It sounded like he’d been missed.  But were they going to be stupid enough to bust into the dressing room to look for him?  Voices started coming closer to the door, but another voice stalled them, led them away.  Curt wasn’t sure, but he thought it might have been Trevor.  He’d have to buy the guy a drink, just in case.

            Arthur set a hand on Curt’s leg, about halfway up his thigh.  “I love your new album,” he said.  “It’s powerful and modern, but still quintessentially _you_.”

            Curt laughed.  “You’re starting to sound like a music reviewer.”

            “Sorry.”

            “Besides, are you saying my music wasn’t powerful before?”

            Arthur shook his head with a chuckle.  “Of course not.  But it’s a different flavor of power.  Just as it’s a different sort of modernity.”

            Curt’s noise of agreement came out more like a grunt.  How else was he supposed to respond to a mouthful of gibberish like Arthur had just produced?  As they sat in silence, Arthur started leaning in closer, pressing against Curt’s side and slipping one arm around him.  It did feel nice, but there was something a bit sneaky about the gesture that ticked Curt off.

            “How’s your mother?” he asked, trying to make his words into a knife point.

            Arthur’s arm faltered, drooped as his center of gravity shifted away from Curt again, almost imperceptibly.  “Frail,” he answered.  “But she’s happy to ‘ave me here.”

            He didn’t sound quite as anguished as Curt would have preferred.  Somehow, that just figured.

            “You’re still cross with me, then?”  Arthur withdrew his arm entirely as he spoke.

            Curt sighed.  It would have been so easy just to say ‘yes,’ but he didn’t want to.  “It’s…” he started, biting his lip as he came to a halt, trying to figure out how to say it.  “Yeah, I’m still kinda pissed, but—”  In the pause, he slipped one hand onto Arthur’s thigh, high up, close to his crotch.  “—I’m also kinda…enjoying seeing you again.”

            From the little sound of half-laughter Arthur produced, he saw through more of Curt’s words than Curt would have liked.  “Not as much as I am,” he said quietly, before they fell into another silence, a bit less uncomfortable than the last.

            They hadn’t broken the silence when purposeful footsteps approached the door from the other side.  “Mr. Wild?”  Curt didn’t recognize the voice, or the face it issued from when the door was unceremoniously opened a moment later.

            “Fuck off!” Curt snarled at him, a true snarl now, unlike the half-assed ones he had produced for Arthur.  “Can’t you see I’m busy?!”

            The man made a feeble apology and hastily shut the door, leaving Curt grumbling about his stupid fucking manager and her invasive policies that had led her to think removing the lock from his door would be a good idea.  He didn’t even want to think about what was going to end up in the papers if that guy who just interrupted them was a reporter.

            “Don’t worry,” Arthur said, with a warm smile.  “I’ll talk to him later.  He won’t print anything.”

            “You know that guy?”

            “Yeah.  Works for a general entertainment periodical.  Tried to chat me up at a party last Christmas.”

            The knowledge that other men were still interested in Arthur was somehow alarming.  It shouldn’t have been.  Curt wasn’t looking for a relationship.  And Arthur claimed not to want to fuck other men than him anyway.  So why was Curt filled with a desire to go hunt that other guy down and beat the shit out of him?

            “Can I ask you something?”  Arthur’s voice dragged Curt back out of the hole his mind had fallen into.

            “What’s with the sudden formality?”  They just fucked; the time for timid questions was long gone.

            Arthur shrugged.  “It’s not really…it’s kind of an odd question.”

            Curt just looked at him curiously, making Arthur sigh.

            “Why ‘ave you never dropped the act?” he asked.  “You didn’t ‘ave to keep pretendin’ to be someone you’re not.  With this new album you were like a phoenix risin’ from the ashes.  You could ‘ave started talkin’ to the press like yourself, instead of the front you were puttin’ forward back in the ‘70s.”

            Curt chuckled, shaking his head.  “Yeah, but if a phoenix goes down and a turkey comes up, no one’s gonna accept that.”

            “Turkey?” Arthur repeated, looking at him with skepticism.  “You don’t really think of yourself as—”

            “C’mon, the metaphor isn’t gonna work without contrast!” Curt snapped.  Why was he so fucking literal?  “If I’d said ‘eagle’ or ‘red-tailed hawk’ that wouldn’t have been different enough to get my point across, would it?!”

            Arthur laughed.  “But that’s the thing, isn’t it?  The real difference _isn’t_ that big.  Besides, it’d be more like an eagle goin’ down and a phoenix comin’ up.  Who you really are is much more magical than the face you present to the public.”

            Fuck.  Arthur always did know just what to say to make Curt’s heart start pounding.  “No one else has ever thought so.”

            “You’ve never given them the chance to find out,” Arthur insisted.  “When we first met, the morning after, when we just _talked_ , that was the part that made the night so perfect for me.  Instead of the gruff persona, I got the _real_ Curt Wild.  Kind, warm, funny, a little frightened underneath, still possessin’ a fragment of childlike innocence…”

            “Are you high?”

            Arthur laughed.  “’Course not.”

            Curt sighed.  He didn’t recognize any of the qualities Arthur had just listed as being part of himself.  Except maybe the fear.  But he hadn’t had much to fear back in ’75.  “Then you must be nuts.”

            “Suppose it’s not impossible,” Arthur admitted, with a sly grin, like he thought this was just Curt’s way of blushing away from a compliment.  Not that it had sounded very complimentary to Curt.  But evidently Arthur had _meant_ it as a compliment…

            Curt wasn’t sure what to say or do now.  He wasn’t ready to forgive Arthur for dumping him and leaving the country so suddenly, but it was hard to be angry at him while they were together like this.  It wasn’t just ‘cause he was hot; it had to be something chemical.  Arthur must have had some really crazy-ass pheromones or something.  And it was worse if he was actually _looking_ at him, so Curt tried to find something else to look at.  Ended up noticing Arthur’s rumpled shirt on the floor by the door.  It was a nicer shirt than the ones he used to wear back in New York, and hadn’t been rumpled before it got tossed onto the floor.  It had been jarred by that fucker trying to barge in on them; now Brian’s pin was facing up, winking at Curt from across the room.

            “You’re still wearing it…” Curt commented, without thinking about it.

            “Always.”

            Curt looked at him skeptically.  “Define ‘always’.”

            Arthur let out an exaggerated sigh.  “I wear it whenever I leave the house.”

            “But not _around_ the house?” Curt laughed.

            Arthur looked away with that uncomfortable look on his face.  “Why would I wear it around the house?” he replied.  “Good way to get something spilled on it, isn’t it?”  It was an evasion, but Curt couldn’t help wondering just _what_ Arthur was evading.  Was his mother likely to throw things at him if she saw him wearing jewelry?  But if she was like Curt’s mother, why would he have willingly uprooted his whole life and left behind the man he claimed to love in order to look after her?

            Curt still hadn’t decided if he was going to ask or not when someone knocked on the door.  “Curt, you still in there?”  It was definitely Trevor’s voice.  “They’re getting a bit riled out here.  I don’t like to interrupt you two, but if you don’t get out here, there might be a riot.”

            “All right, I’m coming out,” Curt said, loud enough for his voice to carry through the door.  “Get everyone’s attention away from the door, will you?”

            “Sure thing, mate.”

            “You told Trevor where you were goin’?” Arthur asked, looking astonished.

            Curt shook his head.  “He must’ve seen you following me.”  He got up, but something felt off.  “Wait, how did you know that was Trevor?  He’s never given enough interviews for people to know his voice.”

            Arthur smiled as he stood up, too.  “He and the Creatures spend a fair bit of time together these days, so I know him pretty well now.  Reg and Harley, too.”

            So now Arthur was taking over Curt’s social circles?  Well, that was just fucking great.  Curt couldn’t bring himself to answer with words; he just grunted and left the dressing room.  Couldn’t risk being seen together by anyone _other_ than Trevor.  And whatever shithead that had been who had burst in on them.

            From the look of things when Curt emerged from the dressing room, the non-reporters had already left, so the reception was now nicely contained in the room it was supposed to take place in to begin with.  But someone right inside the door noticed Curt headed towards him, and started trying to ask questions.  Soon there was a mob around him, and all of them facing the dressing room door, where they’d _all_ see Arthur emerge with his rumpled shirt and messed-up hair.  That would be a fucking catastrophe…

            “All right, all right, shut the fuck up!” Curt shouted at the lot of them.  “Give a man a chance to breathe, will ya?  Lemme get a drink over at the bar, and then I guess I’ll answer a few questions, if it’ll shut you up.”

            They accepted that with the glee of a shark promised a nice, plump bathing beauty as long as he promised to only take one leg.  But the important thing was that they let Curt back into the reception room, and they all followed him across the room to the bar, so now none of them would see another man—and such a pretty one!—coming out of Curt’s dressing room.  And fortunately the bartender was still willing to give Curt booze, so that helped.

            Most of the questions were dull, the type he could answer without even thinking about them.  He’d been playing this part for so long that it came naturally anyway.  After the impromptu press conference had been going on for a while, Curt saw Arthur joining the back ranks, in deep conversation with the man who had walked in on them earlier.  The other guy looked pretty jealous, but Curt wasn’t sure who of.

            After a few more questions, Arthur suddenly piped up with “How long are you plannin’ on stayin’ in London?”

            Normally, Curt would have no problem answering that.  But Arthur wasn’t asking about his professional plans.  He was asking if they were gonna fuck again.  That needed a different answer.  “My manager scheduled a lot more shows in town here, so I’ll be here about a week,” Curt started, watching everyone in the audience _other_ than the man who asked the question start scribbling on notepads.  “The bitch’s got me booked pretty solid, between shows and interviews and other public appearances.  Thinks I'm gonna get back into drugs and shit if I have any free time."  He shrugged.  "I might sneak off to have lunch with some old friends, though.  Just to show her who's really the boss."  From the crestfallen look on Arthur’s face, he did understand that by ‘old friends,’ Curt meant Trevor, not Arthur.

            Of course, the crowd wanted to know about every single one of those concerts, interviews and public appearances, and Curt’s manager wasn’t here to field the boring questions for him.

            He was gonna be at this all night, wasn’t he?


	6. Chapter 6

**1991**

 

            As the cab made its way down sleepy London streets, Curt found himself fingering the card yet again.  The edges were worn, one corner had been rounded right off, and the coloration had gone from half the raised text.  But the ink in the name and address written on the back was still bright and legible.  In the seven months since the last time he’d been in London, Curt had spent a lot of time wondering how that card had found its way into his wallet.  _He_ certainly hadn’t put it there.  But he didn’t exactly let other people fuck around inside his pockets, either.  It was a real mystery.

            The taxi eventually stopped in front of a small house in a quiet neighborhood.  It was only one story, and had a very ordinary car parked in the driveway.  After he paid the driver, Curt got out of the cab and headed for the door of the house.  His nose was assaulted by a cacophony of odors coming from all the spring flowers exploding with garish colors in the garden beside the path.  He hadn’t expected such an energetic flower garden…or one at all, in fact.  Part of him worried that he actually had the wrong house, but since the taxi had already left, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it; he’d have to knock on the door, even if it turned out to be the _wrong_ door and he had to borrow the phone to call for another cab.

            Everything was, at first, very quiet after Curt knocked on the door.  Belatedly noticing a doorbell, he was about to ring it when the door opened, seemingly on its own.

            “Hello!” a little voice exclaimed excitedly.  Curt looked down and saw that it was coming from a little girl about five or six years old.  Shit, he _did_ have the wrong house.  “Who are you?” the girl asked.

            “Uh, my name’s Curt,” he answered, then shook his head.  “I’m looking for someone named Arthur Stuart.  Does he—”

            “Daddy!” the little girl shouted into the house.

            “Daddy?” Curt repeated quietly.  Was she fetching her father because Arthur wasn’t wanted in the neighborhood—or maybe because he didn’t live there anymore?

            “Daaaaaaaaaddyyyyy!” the girl shouted again, drawing out the syllables until it was an exaggerated whine.

            “Don’t go waking up the whole neighborhood,” Curt said.  Making a ruckus first thing Sunday morning in a sleepy area like this was likely to hurt his career, no matter how well it fit his barbaric reputation.  “Can you just tell me where to find him?”

            The girl nodded, then toddled off into the house, leaving the door standing open.  What the fuck was he supposed to do now?  It’d probably be trespassing if he followed the child.  Even if it wouldn’t, it’d make him look like a fucking creeper, and that was the last thing he needed.  He’d just have to wait until she fetched her father…

            But the girl was impatient.  She came back to the door and frowned at him.  “Come on!” she moaned, grabbing Curt’s hand and tugging him forwards.

            Nothing for it, then.  At least he had some vague sort of excuse now.

            Once they were in the house and had passed a TV room where an old Disney movie was playing, the little girl let go of Curt’s hand so she could point at the television.  “The telly doesn’t wait for me,” she told him.

            “Yeah, that happens,” he agreed.  What else was he gonna say?

            The girl led him forward in silence until they came to a hallway that ended in an open door.  “That’s Daddy’s room,” she informed Curt in a whisper, then scampered back off in the direction of her movie.

            This was gonna be fucking awkward.  What was Curt supposed to say to explain his presence in a total stranger’s house?  Maybe he’d get lucky and this guy would be a fan…

            “Sarah?”  What the—no fucking way!  “Did I hear the door?”

            _What the fucking hell was going on in this house?!_

            Arthur _couldn’t_ have a five year old daughter—she’d have to have been born while they were still in New York!  And he’d said that he hadn’t fucked anyone else since 1984!

            But that had absolutely been Arthur’s voice.

            Well, Curt would get to the bottom of this in a hot hurry!  All hesitation forgotten, he went into the room at the end of the hall and shut the door behind him.  It was a bedroom, equipped with a desk filled up with a computer and printer as well as the usual accoutrements.  And, sitting at that desk, his back to the door, was a disheveled figure in pale blue pajamas, his dark hair still matted from the bed.  Now that he was thinking about it, Curt glanced over at the bed.  Definitely a queen-sized, well big enough for two.  Hadn’t been made this morning; didn’t look like it had slept more than one last night…

            The sound of the chair scooting across the floor returned Curt’s attention to Arthur, who was just turning around, his mouth falling open at the sight of his visitor.  He hadn’t shaved yet, and the top half of his pajamas hung open, revealing his chest; whatever workout routine he’d gotten into since leaving New York, that sight proved he was still following it.  He was an unshaven mess, looking like he’d just gotten out of bed that second—despite that he’d probably been sitting in front of his computer for hours, like the workaholic he’d always been—and something about that messy, sloppy look caused an intense throbbing in Curt’s cock.  The ‘you only get to see this if you fucked me last night’ look…

            “Curt…?”  Arthur’s voice shook slightly, and the corners of his mouth were already beginning to turn up in that endearing grin.  “What…?”

            Curt couldn’t remember how to speak.  All he could remember was that he _needed_ this, right this second.  It hadn’t been in his plan—not even close to it—but he crossed the room at a fast clip and pulled Arthur into his arms, kissing him passionately.

            It wasn’t until after they’d finished getting off and collapsed together into the bed that Curt remembered he was fucking pissed about the fact that Arthur had never mentioned having a kid.  “I think you owe me an explanation,” Curt said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Arthur.

            Arthur laughed.  “You’re waiting until _now_ to be cross?”

            “Where the _fuck_ did you get a daughter from?”

            “I don’t ‘ave a daughter,” Arthur claimed.

            “Gonna say that was your _son_ who answered the door?”

            “Don’t be stupid.”  Arthur scowled at him.  “And don’t be peevy, either.”

            “Just explain yourself.”

            Arthur sighed.  “She’s my late brother’s.”

            Curt frowned a moment, thinking over what little he knew about Arthur’s family situation.  One thing eventually crystallized.  “You mean you left New York over her, not your mom?”

            “Sort of.”

            “Sort of?”

            “If it had just been one or the other, I could ‘ave worked something out.  If it was just Mum, I could ‘ave left her with her friends when she wasn’t willin’ to move to New York.  If it had just been Sarah, there’d ‘ave been no reason not to bring her to America.  But with both of them…my hands were tied.  It was move or let a disaster happen—one I could prevent.”

            “And _why_ didn’t you tell me that five years ago!?”

            Arthur rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.  “I thought you’d take that even worse,” he said, shrugging even as he said it.  Or doing something with his shoulders, at any rate.  Probably _supposed_ to be a shrug.  “You didn’t really give me a lot of time to explain,” he added, lolling his head to the side to turn an accusing gaze at Curt.

            “Suppose I didn’t,” Curt admitted, sighing.  “But you could’ve said something when I was in town earlier!”

            “And I would ‘ave, if we’d had more than two minutes to talk.”

            “Shit!”  Curt rolled over onto his back, too.  This was just all fucked up…and somehow he couldn’t help feeling that Arthur was blaming everything on Curt’s libido.  And that he might be right.

            They laid there in silence for a few minutes before Arthur spoke again.  “How was your tour?”

            Fucking depressing.  No one Brian had introduced him to in Paris had been willing to speak to him.  Almost everyone Curt had known in Berlin—every single one of the people he’d wanted to see again—was dead, most of them from AIDS.  After that, Curt had spent most of the tour drunk, to keep from thinking about it.

            “Good,” Curt answered, not wanting to get into it.  “But what the fuck is with the small talk?”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Can I help it if I want to know how it went?”

            It seemed like a sarcastic answer, one Curt didn’t think he ought to dignify by acknowledging it.

            “When…how long…how long are you in town for?” Arthur asked, his voice shaking slightly.

            “Dunno.”  Curt glanced over at him.  Arthur’s face was still aimed up at the ceiling, his eyes squeezed shut.  “I got the best sales and attendance in England,” Curt explained, “and several offers to perform in London on a more regular basis, so…I was thinking of staying here for a while.”

            Arthur’s nervously locked jaw released its tension, and his lips went straight from preparing-for-heartbreak to exuberant grin.

            “Don’t flatter yourself!” Curt exclaimed.  “It’s got nothing to do with you!”  That was almost true.

            Arthur rolled up onto his side, smiling into Curt’s eyes.  “As long as we’re in the same city, that’s more than enough to make me happy.”

            “Ugh.  It’s too early in the morning to be so saccharine,” Curt moaned, turning to face the other way, just in case he was blushing.  From the way Arthur pressed up tight behind him, he wasn’t fooled.

            They stayed there like that long enough that, despite the mechanical whine coming from Arthur’s computer, Curt drifted off to sleep.  He was woken by the sound of someone knocking on the bedroom door.

            “Arthur?”  An unfamiliar woman’s voice.  “Are you in there?”

            Curt felt Arthur let go of him, heard him raising up on one elbow.  “Yes, I am, Mum,” he said, “but I’m changin’ clothes.  What is it?”

            “I’m back from church, and since we spent so long talking afterwards, the Calloways bought us all something to eat.  It’ll get cold if you don’t come eat soon.”

            “I’ll be right out,” Arthur promised.  So, where did that leave Curt?  Catching another cab, sneaking out of the house like a teenager afraid of his girlfriend’s dad?

            “Sarah says you had a visitor…”

            “Yeah.  Hope the Calloways brought enough for four.”

            “Sarah doesn’t eat much,” Arthur’s mother said, with a weak laugh.  Footsteps and the clanking of something metal—probably a cane—soon receded down the hall.

            “Was that a good idea?” Curt asked, turning to look at Arthur.  “Saying I was still in here after you just claimed to be changing clothes?”

            Arthur smiled uncomfortably.  “Don’t worry.”

            If Arthur’s mother had been anywhere else other than church, Curt would find it easier to avoid worrying.  But he knew damned well how vicious the religious could get with people like them.

            Arthur gave him a quick kiss.  “My mum knows all about my tastes, and she’s accepted it.”

            “Bullshit.” Curt grumbled, even as Arthur got out of the bed.  “She ever actually seen you with a man?” he asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

            “You know she hasn’t.”

            “Then you don’t know she _really_ accepts it.  You just know she _claims_ to accept it.”

            Arthur shrugged.  “It’s goin’ to happen sooner or later,” he said, then disappeared into the bathroom.  “May as well get it over with sooner rather than later.”  The sound of an electric razor started up.

            “You’re flattering yourself again,” Curt replied, trying to sound angry at Arthur rather than at his own mother, half the world and thirty years away.  “When did I say anything to make you think I’d ever want to meet your mother?”

            Arthur laughed.  “You didn’t.  But if you didn’t want to see me again, why would you be jealous when you thought Sarah was my child?”  He probably had some smug look on his—no, Arthur wasn’t even _capable_ of being smug, the little shit.  He was just fucking _earnest_ all the time.  Which was probably a lot of the attraction, really; it made him the complete opposite of Brian.

            Curt slowly put his clothes back on, trying to figure out what he could say to explain why this was 100% a bad idea.  He was still trying to puzzle it out by the time Arthur emerged from the bathroom, his face neatly shaved—he really did look much better without the stubble, despite how it had turned Curt on earlier—and his hair nicely combed, but still stark fucking naked.  He leaned over his computer keyboard, giving Curt much too nice a view.  “You should probably fix up your hair,” Arthur suddenly said, looking at Curt over his shoulder.  “I’m sure Mum knows what we’ve been doin’ in here, but we don’t want Sarah to ask questions.”

            As if the idea of meeting Arthur’s mother wasn’t bad enough, he had to go and remind Curt that she absolutely knew they just fucked?  Curt’s stomach was churning as he went into the bathroom to check on the state of his hair.  If it didn’t settle down soon, he wasn’t going to need lunch; he’d probably just throw it all up again.

            By the time Curt finished putting his hair into a new elastic—the old one was probably in Arthur’s bed somewhere—and emerged from the bathroom, Arthur was just finishing up getting dressed.  He smiled, and came over to give Curt a very sweet kiss, gently stroking a little of Curt’s hair out of his face.  “Don’t worry.  It’ll be fine.”

            “Who’s worried?”  Curt wasn’t about to admit to anything.

            From the way he laughed as he finished buttoning up his shirt, Arthur wasn’t buying it.  He did have a habit of being too sharp for anyone’s good.  Well, it was his own fault for thinking about things instead of just accepting what he was told. 

            All too soon, Curt found himself being led back out of the bedroom, down the hall, and around a corner into a kitchen with a breakfast nook containing a table and four chairs.  One of the chairs was filled up with the little girl—Sarah—and the other three were empty, because Arthur’s mother was making her way towards the table, trying to hold onto both a pot and her walker.

            “Mum, I’ve told you to let me handle the tea!” Arthur exclaimed, dashing over to snatch the pot away before she could drop it.

            “I’m not an invalid,” the woman insisted, despite looking so frail that a breath would break her.  She looked pretty old, too, too old to be Arthur’s mother.  Maybe she’d been aged prematurely by all her losses?  As if she felt him looking at her, she turned her head to look at Curt, then tried to smile at him, though it wasn’t very convincing.  “You must be Curt,” she said.  “Arthur’s told us so much about you.”

            Curt nodded, trying to think of any possible words he could use to reply.  Why the fuck would he have been telling his mom—and his niece?—about Curt?  What the hell would he have even said?  He glanced over at the table, and found the little girl smiling widely at him, with a tiny bit of mischief in her eyes.  Had she known he was her uncle’s estranged lover when she let him in?  That seemed impossible, for a girl that young…

            While Curt was still trying to puzzle it out, Arthur’s mother shuffled her way to the table and sat down, and Arthur started pulling little white boxes out of a brown paper bag on the counter.  The scents of several different Chinese dishes began to waft through the little kitchen.  Somehow, Arthur’s mother didn’t look like the type to go for Chinese food…

            Arthur glanced over at him.  “Go on and sit down,” he said.  “The seat next to Sarah.”

            Giving Curt the position opposite Arthur’s mother.  Great.  ‘Cause old lady was just what he wanted to look at while he was eating.  Especially an old lady whose son he had just fucked.

            Still, the old woman smiled at him as he was sitting down.  “Arthur told us you’re originally from a place called Michigan,” she said.  “That’s…ah…Detroit, yes?”

            Curt did his best not to grimace.  “Detroit’s in Michigan, but I’m not from there.  I did spend about a year living there before moving to New York, but I’m from further north.  Middle of nowhere.”

            Arthur’s mother kept trying to draw him out with questions about his hometown—though _why_ she would want to know was beyond Curt—until Arthur finally put a stop to it as he brought the food over to the table.  He had transferred it all to proper dishes, and was carrying them over on a tray, which he set down in the center of the table.

            The early portion of the meal was painful.  Arthur’s mother kept trying to be politely interested in getting to know Curt, all the while obviously uncomfortable with the knowledge of just what he was to her son, and it was really hard to answer her questions without swearing or talking about sex, drugs or anything else a five year old shouldn’t hear.  Fortunately, Sarah finished eating much sooner than everyone else, and immediately started prattling over everyone else, letting Curt not worry about anything but eating and resisting the urge to fondle Arthur under the table.

            After lunch, Sarah went scampering off to play, and her grandmother slowly followed her to look after the child, while Arthur got the dishes off the table and into the dishwasher.  Only when that was done did Curt ask for bus directions to the nearest Underground station so he could get back to his hotel.

            “You’re leavin’ so soon?” Arthur asked, looking at him with disappointment.

            “I was supposed to be meeting my manager for lunch, so yeah, if I don’t get back soon, I’m gonna be dead meat.”  Curt tried to laugh, but nothing really felt funny about it.  That was exactly why he’d gone so early in the morning, and why he hadn’t intended it to turn into sex.

            There was a note of misery in Arthur’s voice as he gave the directions, then he paused.  “Or I could drive you back.  Save some time.”

            “Do you have time?  Weren’t you working on a story when I got here?”

            “It’s not urgent,” Arthur assured him, with a passionate kiss.  “But I will see you again, right?”  Unlike his confidence in the bedroom, now he sounded like he was about to break out into tears.

            “Maybe,” Curt tried to say.  But what came out was “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know "cacophony of odors" is an absurd mixing of two very different senses. But it just felt right here, y'know?


	7. Chapter 7

            Arthur was so uncomfortable about the idea of ringing the bell that he hesitated in the hallway for several minutes without doing so.  Interviews were old hat, and being specifically requested to be the interviewer had become old hat, too, since the exposé that had made him briefly famous.

            Being requested to interview someone who used to bully him in school, however, was new.

            The strange part was that Rick Campbell didn’t seem the bullying type; if Arthur had explained to his co-workers why he’d been reluctant to accept the assignment, no one would have believed him.  Rick did all sorts of charity work, especially since retiring, and he’d never even been accused of misconduct, despite the sort of reputation footballers had.  He hadn’t even particularly bullied anyone _else_ in school, just Arthur, and only in that final year of school, really.

            Hoping that the interview might shed some light on just why Rick had been so cruel—or at least why he’d picked a former victim to interview him—Arthur finally gave in and rang the bell.  The door was answered quickly, by the man himself, with a surprisingly warm smile on his lips.

            The last time Arthur had seen Rick Campbell smiling, it was with cruel glee as he yanked Arthur’s notebook out of his hands, ripping the sketch of Maxwell Demon on the top page as he did so.  The memory made it hard for Arthur to take that first step into Rick’s flat.

            He had to remind himself that—just as had been the case back in school—he had half a foot in height on Rick, and while Rick was now a trained athlete and even stronger than he had been, Arthur was stronger, too, having taken up a serious exercise regimen since leaving America.  Even if he intended some renewal of violence, Rick wouldn’t find it as easy as he expected.  Only thinking that, repeatedly, gave Arthur the courage to enter the flat.

            After shutting the door, Rick started going through the usual uncomfortable procedure:  invitation to have a drink, offering several locations to hold the interview, all that rot.  He didn’t get very far before simply stopping.  “Before we start, while we’re still off the record, I have to say something to you,” Rick said.

            “Yeah?”  As much as he’d have liked one, Arthur knew better than to expect an apology.  It was probably going to be a lecture on the evils of homosexuality.

            “I know you won’t have forgotten the way I used to treat you, and I appreciate your professionalism in coming out here to talk to me anyway,” Rick said, looking anywhere but at Arthur.  “But I want to explain _why_ I acted that way…”

            “It’s pretty easy to guess.”  Everyone else in the entire fucking country had assumed a Brian Slade fan was automatically queer.  Why wouldn’t Rick have done so, too?  Admittedly, in Arthur’s case it was true, but…

            Rick looked back at him now, a slightly wounded expression on his face.  “No, I don’t think it is.”

            “You weren’t the only one to come to the conclusion that I was gay,” Arthur assured him.  Though most of the others—apart from Nigel—had been creepy old men hoping to take advantage of him.

            Rick shook his head.  “You don’t understand.”  He sighed.  “You know the old cliché of the little boy who teases the girl he fancies?  It was a little like that.  I…I was terrified of any of my mates realisin’ I didn’t ‘ave any interest in girls.  If I’d let on how smitten I was with you…”  While Arthur’s mind was reeling, Rick stood there in silence, his breathing indicating a raging battle inside him.  “I’d hoped to have some chance to be alone with you, to explain myself…maybe to—but you left town before I had that chance.”

            “I…”  Arthur didn’t have any idea what he wanted to say, so he stopped trying to reply almost immediately.  How was he supposed to process something like this?

            “But can I ask you something?”  A pause, in which Arthur nodded, still unable to speak.  “If I’d found that opportunity, would you have been willing to—would I have had a chance?”

            Someone his own age trying to chat him up was not something Arthur was particularly used to, and he certainly hadn’t had any experience with it back in school.  “It’s hard to know,” Arthur started, biting his tongue as he spoke, it was so clumsy in his awkward nervousness.  “I can’t be sure, but…probably.”  Rick wasn’t gorgeous, and never had been, but he wasn’t ugly, either.  His athlete’s physique would certainly not hamper his cause now, but given Arthur’s initial uncertainty about his own sexuality, a more androgynous body—like Brian’s—would likely have been more appealing to him at the time.  Still, compared to perverts molesting him at the cinema, Rick would have seemed downright ideal.  “Was that why you retired so young?” Arthur asked, trying to get back onto a footing he knew how to deal with.  “You were afraid of being outed?”

            The smile that had appeared on Rick’s face at Arthur’s answer disintegrated at his question.  “I’ll get into that when we’re on the record,” he said, his voice so sombre that Arthur realised it had to have been much more serious than that.  “I want to know what happened to you.  Disappearing like that, and then no one heard from you in more than ten years, until suddenly you were exposing the depths to which Brian Slade has sunk over in America…”

            Arthur chuckled slightly.  “Wouldn’t ‘ave been much different if I’d graduated before leavin’,” he said.  “I doubt I’d ‘ave gotten into a university worth attending, or that I’d ‘ave bothered with it.”

            “Where did you go?”

            “London.  Of course.”  Arthur shook his head.  “I got to see the world I’d wanted from the inside.  Saw it wasn’t so glamorous behind the glitter.  I guess I still loved it anyway, but I had to grow up eventually.”  He shrugged.  “Ended up in New York for years.  Only came home to look after my mum.”

            Rick nodded.  “I heard about your brother.  Terrible thing.  That wife of his was a sweet lady.”  He grimaced.  “No offense, but Nigel was no loss.”

            “That’s certainly how I saw it.”  Though Arthur still didn’t know much about his late sister-in-law, except that everyone talked about how wonderful she had been.  But if she’d been so wonderful, why had she settled for a prat like Nigel?  He must have gotten her in some difficulty, forcing her to marry him…

            “Are you…your mum doesn’t object to…your…sexuality…?”

            Arthur shrugged.  “I don’t think she’s terribly happy about it—keeps droppin’ hints she wants more grandchildren—but she does her best to pretend she is.”

            “Are you seeing someone right now?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Is it serious?”  Was that Rick’s way of trying to chat him up nearly twenty years too late?

            “I’m serious.  Still not sure how he really feels.”

            Rick chuckled.  “How long have you been seeing each other?”

            “A few months.  This time.  We ‘ave a bit of history before that.”

            “Are you being careful?”  The weight in Rick’s voice told Arthur so much that he could have written up his story just based on that one question.

            “We’ve both been tested.”  A pathetic way of trying not to say ‘no.’  But unless the tests were wrong, it _should_ be safe…assuming Curt wasn’t still sleeping with other people when Arthur’s back was turned…

            They were soon taking a seat at the table, and beginning the interview proper, which told Arthur exactly what he had already surmised.  Rick had retired from football when he learnt he was HIV+, and he was now telling the world about his sexuality and his illness because he was starting to see the symptoms.  It wasn’t as bad being queer in Britain as it had been when Arthur moved back to London, but it still wasn’t the same as being straight, and part of the reason Rick was coming forward was in the hopes of coaxing people to be more accepting.  In the course of the interview, Rick’s accent only became pronounced when he was distressed by what he was saying; the rest of the time it was kept under the kind of control Arthur had never managed to master.

            The entire experience was an enormous mental and emotional strain, and Arthur had to stop at a pub for a pint before he could make it home.  He’d have preferred to go to Curt’s flat for a shag, but Curt was back in New York right now, making a television appearance.  A pub was a sorry substitute for Curt’s bed, but it was still better than just going straight home.  He couldn’t stay for more than a single pint, though; imagine if Sarah went to school tomorrow saying that her ‘Daddy’ had come home late, smelling like a pub!  There were already those who thought he was unfit to be raising his niece—and her father would surely have agreed with them—and if they had even the slightest reason to suspect him of _anything_ beyond his romantic inclinations, they’d be taking Sarah away before a man could blink.

            So Arthur ended up going home at about the usual time, with his thirst unquenched.  Not that he could quench his _true_ thirst, not while Curt was on the other side of an ocean.  When he arrived home, his mother called out a greeting from her chair in the other room—which she would certainly never have done while she could still get around without a zimmer—but Sarah didn’t come running to greet him.

            A bit perplexed, he went looking, and found both his mother and Sarah in front of the television, which was showing some American animated programme that had Sarah staring in unblinking rapture.  She seemed genuinely not to have heard him come in, so Arthur gestured to his mother to keep quiet, and went back into his room to put down his satchel and take off his shoes.

            Then he had to go to the kitchen and set about making dinner.  Since starting this living arrangement, Arthur had begun to understand just why society had created the whole ‘wife waiting with dinner when her husband came home’ idea:  after a long day at work, the last thing a person wanted to do was to have to make a nice dinner.  Back in New York, it hadn’t been an issue, because _no one_ cooked in New York, particularly not if they lived alone.  But in London, with three mouths to feed, having take-out every night was not a practical solution, particularly from a financial standpoint.  And Mum was in no state to cook—she wasn’t quite so frail as she had been, as her London doctor was better than the one she had been seeing in Manchester, but her hands shook terribly now, making it actually _dangerous_ for her to try cooking anything more complex than a microwave dinner.

            While Arthur was cooking, Mum came in and asked him about his day.  He was still stressed enough that he went ahead and told her all about the interview, despite that he would normally try to hide the fact that he had ever been bullied in school, something he had certainly hidden at the time.  “I’ll ‘ave to go back to work after dinner,” he went on.  “Need to get the article written up for tomorrow’s paper.”  Fortunately, it was going to write itself, and Arthur had already done what little research he needed.

            After her programme was over, Sarah came barrelling into the kitchen, burbling excitedly about how wonderful it was.  Once she had finished telling her grandmother all about it, Arthur put down what he was doing and turned to crouch down and look at his niece.  “Did you ‘ave a good day at school, Sarah?” he asked.

            Sarah smiled widely for a moment, then her smile faded away entirely.  “It was fine,” she answered in an uncharacteristically quiet tone.  Arthur recognised that tone all too well; he used to produce it often enough when he was a boy.

            “Nothing happened, then?”

            The little girl shook her head.  “It was fine, Uncle Arthur,” she insisted.

            To think two words could sting so badly!  Arthur had to turn around and force himself to go about the busywork of cooking, just to keep from letting on that he was—strangely enough—hurt to be addressed so correctly.

            What had happened?  Were her classmates taunting her for being raised by a man who liked other men?  Were her teachers telling her untruths about him?  Or had she simply heard stories about gay men and how they weren’t accepted by society, and now she wanted to distance herself from him?

            Rather than focus on the hurt, Arthur tried to watch Sarah through the rest of the evening and guess which it was, but he wasn’t finding any real clues.  Every time he would compliment her on something, her little face would light up with a happy smile—as it always had—and then fade back to a sad, hopelessly blank expression.  Whatever had been said to her, it hadn’t yet had a permanent impact on her affections for him.  Maybe with time, things would go back to the way they had been…


	8. Chapter 8

**1992**

 

            Live talk shows were the worst.  Curt always had to work so hard to keep his tongue on a leash that he ended up sounding like an idiot who could only produce words at all through utmost straining.  But maybe that was what people wanted from him anyway.  Prerecorded shows like this one were a little better—at least he could swear all he wanted, because they’d just bleep it out in editing—but they almost never gave you a do-over if you fucked up and said something you didn’t mean to.

            “Bottom line,” his manager was saying, “you _have_ to come clean when he asks you.”

            “Come clean?” Curt repeated, pissed off.  “What the fuck do you think I’m doing that needs to be ‘cleaned’ away?”

            “You have to stop lying when people ask you if you’re involved with anyone.”

            Curt looked away.  “It’s nothing serious.”

            “How long has it been since you last fucked anyone _other_ than Arthur?”

            Not the kind of question Curt wanted to answer.  “About…five months…”  Maybe a bit longer…

            “It’s serious.”

            See, in Curt’s mind, there was a difference between ‘serious’ and ‘monogamous.’  You could be one without the other.  He’d been serious about Brian without being particularly monogamous.  Although it had more been _Brian_ who wasn’t monogamous, really.  Curt had almost never fooled around with anyone else while he was seeing Brian.  He’d barely even taken part in all those fucking orgies.  But just because he was at this point pretty much monogamous with Arthur, that didn’t mean he was necessarily _serious_ about him.

            Did it?

            Curt was still mulling the idea over in his head when it was time to go out on stage for the interview.  The studio audience was raucously excited to see him—which was always a thrill—but there was a smug look on the host’s face that worried him.  Eddie Shepherd was one of those TV hosts who had a huge staff to investigate their guest’s every little secret, so he could ask deep, cutting questions and push them off guard.

            Well, Curt didn’t have any secrets.  Okay, sure, he never talked about his family, and liked to pretend they had never existed, but it wasn’t a secret, as such.  And with all the evidence being all the way back on the Upper Peninsula, Shepherd’s staff probably hadn’t learned about any of that.  The fucker probably just wanted to talk about Arthur.  They _had_ been seen in public together a few too many times lately…

            After the trite, one-sided ‘banter’ that marked the opening of the interview, Shepherd leaned back in his chair, looking extra smug.  “So, how’s the old love life been lately?” he asked, in a tone that he probably thought was ‘casual.’

            “Private,” Curt snarled.

            “Now, now, no need to turn feral on me,” Shepherd laughed.  “You can’t get out of it, you know.  Once you’ve started feeding the birds, you can’t stop.  And back when you were with Brian Slade, you—”

            “I am not spending the rest of my life paying for Brian’s mistakes,” Curt snapped, cutting him off.  “Letting Jerry whore us out like that was a mistake, and it wasn’t _my_ mistake, either.  I went along with it because I was too fucked up to know any better.  But I know better now, and I am not doing any shit like that ever again.  What I do outside a recording studio and off a concert stage is no one’s business but mine.  Why are people so goddamned interested in who I’m fucking, anyway?!”

            Shepherd smiled, almost sadly.  “Because they like you, of course.  The public want to think of their favorite celebrities as their friends.”

            “That’s bullshit.”

            “Think about it.  Ever heard the average person talking about his favorite actor or singer?”  All the time.  Arthur talked about other artists a lot.  “You must have heard fans talking in all those interviews back in the ‘70s.  They didn’t talk about Mr. Slade or Mr. Wild—they talked about Brian and Curt.  Because they wanted to believe you were, in some ineffable way, their friends.  And friends like to know about their friends’ love lives.”

            Curt bit his lip before letting out a miserable sigh.  “If you put it like that, it does make a certain amount of sense,” he had to admit.  “And maybe if it was a _fan_ asking, I’d talk about it.  But _you_ are not a fan, and you don’t put off friendly vibes.  It’s like talking to a fucking shark.”

            Shepherd laughed.  “You’re that desperate to avoid talking about that chap you’ve been seen everywhere with lately?”

            “Everywhere?” Curt repeated.  “What the hell are you smoking?  A couple of restaurants and a few movie theaters is not _everywhere_.  We don’t go out all that often.  It’s easier to stay in.”

            The sick grin that covered Shepherd’s face confirmed the accuracy of comparing him to a shark.  It was actually somewhat surprising that his teeth were not, in fact, pointy.  “Your place or his?”

            “Mine, usually.  His isn’t empty.”

            “Ooh, another married man?”

            Curt got to his feet in a hasty gesture, making ready to punch the asshole in the face.  And Shepherd cringed comfortingly.  But Curt could also see his manager just offstage, glaring death at him.  And that reminded him that he really didn’t need the bad press, so he sat down again.  “He’s not married, but he’s looking after his sick mother and orphaned niece.”  Might as well tell the truth.

            “That must make things awkward for you.”  Shepherd’s voice was normal, but his eyes were laughing.

            “Not really.  I get on pretty well with them.”  Though Sarah was a little leery of him since she learned that men didn’t normally fall in love with other men.  For the most part, it felt forced, though, like she was having to remind herself she wasn’t supposed to like him.  It would probably pass in a year or two.  It was already better than it had been when it started a few months ago.

            Wait, a year or two?  Since when did Curt plan on still being with Arthur years from now?

            “How much of that big exposé was really _your_ doing?  Surely he wouldn’t have known so much about Brian Slade’s new persona without your help.”

            “Motherfucking sack of shit!  What the _fuck_ makes you think you have any damned clue what the hell you’re talking about?!  Arthur and I only got serious after I moved to London!  We hadn’t talked in _years_ when he wrote that story!  And I never had to tell him what Brian had become—he’d figured that out before we met up in New York back in the ‘80s!”  Curt couldn’t stop his enraged exclamations until it was too late and he had said far too much.

            Shepherd, of course, looked so pleased with himself that he might pop.  Curt wished he _would_.  Anything that would rid the world of that annoying fucker.

            Despite how bad a start that was to the interview, it actually went all downhill from there, and Curt was so livid by the time he left that he couldn’t see straight.

            As soon as he got home, he picked up the phone and started dialing.  “Can you come over?” he asked as soon as Arthur picked up.

            “Well, yes, but I was goin’ to watch your interview—”

            “Tape it.  I need you right now.”

            There was a pause on the other end of the line.  Knowing Arthur, he had either come to the absolute worst possible conclusion, or he was grinning like an idiot.  Or maybe he was flipping back and forth between the two.  “I can be there in half an hour,” he finally said.

            “That’s a long time!”  Curt could go crazy between now and then!

            “I ‘ave to make sure someone can come over to look after Sarah in case Mum has a spell.  I’ll try to be there quicker, I promise.”

            By now, Sarah was old enough to look after herself for a night; Arthur was being overprotective, as usual.  It wasn’t worth the effort of arguing with him about it.  That might make him change his mind and not come.  “The sooner the better,” Curt urged.

            To keep his mind disengaged, Curt opened a beer and got out his guitar.  Playing was the best way to stop himself from thinking.  Best after sex, anyway.

            Before he knew it, Arthur was letting himself into the apartment.  Curt put away his guitar quickly—ignoring Arthur’s usual pleas not to stop—and pulled Arthur into a tight embrace.  When their lips parted, Arthur looked at him with a curious expression, his eyes worried even as the rest of his face smiled.  “Is something wrong?”

            “Not exactly.”  Curt let go again, and pushed his hair back out of his face, as if that would somehow make the thoughts in his brain fall into line.  “I guess I’ve just been thinking.”

            “What about?”

            “Well, I…I want to…I think it’s time we—I—um…”  Why the _fuck_ was this so hard to say?

            From the way he was smiling, Arthur probably already knew what Curt wanted to say.  “You don’t ‘ave to force yourself,” he said quietly.

            “I’m not.  It’s just…”  Curt scowled, shaking his head.

            Arthur leaned in and kissed him.  “Would it be easier to say in the morning?” he suggested, sliding his body suggestively close.

            “Probably not,” Curt sighed.  If it was that easy, he’d probably have said it ages ago.  Or maybe not.  He wasn’t sure anymore.  “I…fuck!”

            With that exclamation, Curt stalked back over to the sofa and flopped back down into his seat, grabbing his beer on the way down.  He drained it as Arthur came over to sit down beside him.  “Curt, you’re not actin’ like yourself.”  Shit, now he was worried?

            “It’s nothing,” Curt insisted.

            “Clearly not.”

            Curt sighed.  “I just…it’s been a while, yeah?  Since I moved in here.”

            “Yes, I suppose it has…?”

            “And…and it’s been pretty good.”

            Arthur put a hand on Curt’s thigh, sliding it up until it was almost grazing his cock.  “I think it’s been better than just ‘pretty good’.”

            “So, I…I mean, it’s been a while since I really felt any strong desire to fuck anyone else…”  If he was being as honest as he had meant to be, he’d have to admit to much more than that.  When he’d been flown back to New York for a surprise appearance on _Saturday Night Live_ , Curt had found attractive members of both sexes hurling themselves at him, but he hadn’t been the slightest bit tempted by any of them.

            “I’m glad to hear it.”  It was practically a purr, right next to his ear.  So fucking hot!

            “So….so….I was…I was thinking…fucking hell, stop that!” Curt shouted, pushing Arthur away.  “How the fuck am I supposed to keep talking if you start sucking on my ear?!”

            “I thought we could talk after,” Arthur said, his voice quiet and sheepish.  As usual, the reprimand was making his body contract, as if he was trying to hide inside himself.  Was that some kind of freakish defense mechanism, or was his self-esteem really that fragile?

            “I wanna get it all out there now, before it can get pushed outta my mind.  Otherwise, I might never say it.”  Curt tried to get a few more drops out of his empty beer bottle.  “I just thought maybe it was time I…”  He set the bottle down again, spinning it idly in place on the table, keeping it upright with one finger.  “I thought I should, you know, be a little more…serious…”

            Curt felt a hand on his chin, turning his face away from the spinning bottle.  “I love you,” Arthur said, before kissing him passionately.

            Still a little uneven.

            But it was a start.  Even if it might have been a bit overdue.


End file.
